The Collar Told the Truth

Mom's proud voice rang in my ears, over and over.

She had not been tricked into buying that jacket. In her eyes, I just deserved 'junk'.

For the first time in my life, I realized something major.

However, I did not give up. I kept looking for proof that Mom treated Edmund and me the same.

I opened up their chat logs. It was clean, just filled with everyday talk.

I could not see a single money transfer.

The cleaner it was, the stranger it seemed.

I checked Mom's money transfers.

There it was: Mom had been regularly sending money to Edmund.

From a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars, every single month.

As for me, Mom stopped giving me money once I grew up to help me 'become more independent'.

I got through college with loans and jobs.

Even when times were really tough, I still could not ask my parents for even a little bit of money to help.

I used to be jealous of Edmund, managing school and taking good care of himself.

Whenever I asked how he made his money, he just smiled weirdly. I thought he was being tight-lipped.

It turned out he just thought it was funny to see me so clueless.

The latest transfer was for $1800 that Mom had sent for shopping, with a note: [For your new jacket. Get the latest style, and make sure the packaging looks nice!]

I glared at the screen. My eyes stung, but I did not let myself cry.

If Mom could pretend a piece of clothing from the trash was new...

What about before?

I remembered my growth spurts back in middle school.

Mom gave Edmund and me warm milk every morning and night.

Edmund always said it was sweet and made him grow tall and strong.

However, mine always tasted weird.

The milk tasted a bit sour, and there were always weird bits at the bottom of my cup. Sometimes, they even looked like tiny chunks of cheese.

Back then, I knew it tasted awful.

When I complained to Mom, she would give me a fierce look and slam the dishes down.

"Your brother drinks it just fine. Why do you always have to make a fuss?

"It's cheap milk, so don't expect it to taste like liquid gold! You're just being fussy. If you don't like it, then don't drink it!"

Edmund would tease me too, wiping the milk from his lips and laughing.

"Frank, are you pretending to be sick so you don't have to go to school? The milk's great. Mom got us the special high-calcium kind."

However, I kept getting sick—really sick.

Once, I got so dehydrated from diarrhea that I ended up in the hospital at midnight, hooked up to an IV.

The doctor wondered if I had eaten something bad.

"No! He's always had a weak stomach and never gains weight, no matter what he eats. It must be natural causes," Mom said.

Lying in that hospital bed and watching Mom rush around, I felt so guilty.

I thought my weak body was dragging the family down and wasting money.

However...

My hands shook as I typed 'milk' into the search bar of Mom and Edmund's chat history.

So many messages popped up, going back years.

The latest one was from last month.

Mom: [Got another box of milk from the discount section at the store. It was just ten bucks!]

Mom: [The ones with red caps are past their expiry date. Give those to Frank! He's got an iron stomach. The blue-capped ones are still good, so save those for yourself.]

My stomach flipped reading that.

I was not weak.

My own mom had fed me spoiled milk for years!