To save me from end-stage kidney failure, Mom sold her wedding ring and became a food delivery driver, working days and nights.
She always said, Mia, you’re the only reason I’m alive.
For three years, since the diagnosis, I had been a vampire to my family, slowly draining the life from her.
The day a typhoon hit, Mom had to go out again.
I clutched her hand, pleading with her not to go. But her face hardened.
If I don’t risk my life for money, how do I buy yours?!”
“In this house, being broke is scarier than any storm! If you want to live, then be quiet!”
“You think a typhoon scares me? I’d walk through hell and back for you!”
She pulled on her delivery jacket and vanished into the downpour.
But Mom didn’t know, I didn’t want to live anymore.
If I died, she wouldn’t have to struggle.
I was a burden.
Once that thought took root, it grew into a towering tree.
I walked back to my room and locked the door.
Sitting at my easel, I reached for the long-term catheter just below my collarbone.
My hand trembled, not from fear, but from my body’s own primal resistance.
All I could see was Mom’s exhausted face.
I clenched my teeth, grabbed the catheter’s connector, and pulled.
A searing pain tore through me. A choked cry escaped. Cold sweat drenched my back in an instant.
Warm blood welled out, tracing a path down my collarbone, across my chest, and dripping onto the floor.
I picked up a brush and loaded it with paint. I had to paint. One last piece.
On the canvas, a figure in a raincoat rode an electric scooter, fighting through wind and rain.
It was Mom.
But I didn’t want to paint a gloomy typhoon day. I wanted to paint her a rainbow.
I wanted her to ride on that rainbow, to all the faraway places I longed to go but couldn’t.
More and more blood flowed, and the warmth drained from my body, bit by bit.
It was so cold. My vision blurred, and the paintbrush in my hand felt impossibly heavy.
“Mia?”
A familiar voice brushed against my ear. I strained to turn my head.
In the dim corner of the room stood a man.
He wore faded work clothes, a hard hat held in his hands, and on his face was a kind, simple smile.
It was Dad. Arthur. He looked just as he had three years ago when he left-not a day older.
“Dad…”
My lips parted. The word came out a whisper, thin as a mosquito’s hum. Tears and cold sweat mingled on my face.
Dad used to lift me onto his shoulders so I could see the world. He’d spend his entire paycheck the day he got it, just to spoil me with candy.
When I got sick, he buried himself in construction, working every grueling shift he could find.
That last day, he took a high-altitude job for an extra thirty dollars-and slipped from the scaffolding.
They found him still clutching the money he’d saved for my medicine.
Dad walked over now and crouched beside me, his hand reaching to touch my head.
“Mia, does it hurt?”
“Finish that stroke. Then I’ll take you somewhere it won’t.”
I looked at him, forcing a grotesque smile.
“Dad, just a little longer.”
“I have to finish Mom’s raincoat. Can’t let her get wet.”
I looked back at the canvas.
My wrist was too weak, so I used my whole arm to guide the brush.
Yellow paint piled up on the canvas, but Mom’s face wasn’t painted yet.
I couldn’t see clearly anymore.
A blood-red fog enveloped my vision.
The paintbrush slipped from my hand, rolling twice on the floor, stained with my blood.
My body collapsed backward, uncontrollably.
So tired, truly exhausted.
For three years, every dialysis session dragged me to the edge of death.
Now, it was over.
No more dialysis.
No more bitter pills.
No more watching Mom haggle over cents at the market.
Outside the window, a clap of thunder echoed, and lightning illuminated the cramped rental room.
It also illuminated me, lying in a pool of blood.
Mom, I’m sorry. I wasn’t a good daughter in this life.
Next life, I won’t come. You live well for yourself.
The moment my consciousness completely plunged into darkness, I felt my body lighten.
I floated up, all the way to the ceiling.
I looked down and saw myself.
Skeletal, my face pale, blood pooling on the floor from my chest.
I was dead. This floating feeling was strange, wondrous.
But I didn’t want to leave yet.
I needed to check on Mom.
With such heavy rain, I hoped she wouldn’t fall.
The thought had barely formed when an invisible force pulled me out.
Through walls, through the rain.
The wind howled, and rain poured down like a waterfall.
But I felt no cold, no wetness.
I was beside Mom.
The water here was already past her ankles.
The street had turned into a murky river.
Trees along the road swayed violently in the wind.
Mom hunched over the handlebars of her second-hand scooter, the rain slicker clinging to her back. Her helmet visor was completely fogged.
“Order approaching overtime. Deliver immediately.”
A notification chimed from her phone.
She swiped a glove across the visor. “What’s the damn hurry?!”
A glance at the navigation. The destination was a luxury complex downtown.
“This one… the delivery fee plus the storm surcharge… fifty-five dollars.”
“Enough for two of Mia’s supplement shakes.”
She muttered into the rain, her gaze fixed ahead, hard with determination.
For those fifty-five dollars, she twisted the scooter’s throttle to its maximum speed.
The navigation showed severe flooding on the main road ahead and suggested a detour.
Mom stopped and saw the detour would add an extra three miles.
It would definitely cause a delay, and a delay meant a penalty, or even her account being deactivated.
Mom gritted her teeth, turned the handlebars, and veered into an old, narrow alleyway.
It was a shortcut, but the road was terrible, full of potholes.
“Mom! Don’t go there!”
I floated above her, yelling.
“That path has no lights! It’s all mud pits!”
But she couldn’t hear me.
The electric scooter struggled forward in the muddy water.
Suddenly.
A blinding beam of headlights shone directly at her.
A car, driving against traffic, swerved sharply to avoid a fallen tree branch.
It rushed straight towards Mom!
“Look out!!”
I shrieked, lunging forward, trying to push the car away.
My hand passed right through the car’s hood, through the engine.
Nothing could stop it.
Mom reacted incredibly fast.
She sharply tilted the scooter to the side, her arm clamped tightly around the food delivery box in her lap.
Bang!
She and the scooter tumbled heavily into a muddy ditch at the roadside.
But her hands were still fiercely protecting the delivery box. She ran her fingers through her wet hair on her forehead.
“As long as the delivery box is fine!”
The car didn’t even stop, accelerating away.
Splashing mud splattered all over Mom.
“Mom!”
I cried, kneeling beside her.
Mom lay in the mud, motionless for a long time.
My heart leaped into my throat.
After several agonizing seconds, she moved.
She painfully pushed herself up. In that moment, her face twisted in a grimace of pain.
The fabric of her pants was torn at her right knee, skin peeled back, and bright red blood seeped out.
It looked incredibly painful.
But the first thing she did after scrambling up wasn’t to check her leg.
She frantically opened the protected delivery box.
The seafood porridge inside was perfectly intact, shielded by the foam container, not a single drop spilled.
Mom let out a long breath.
She sat in the mud, wiped her face, and even managed a faint, foolish smile.
“Good, it didn’t spill.”
“Fifty-five dollars saved.”
In that moment, my heart was shredded.
I wanted to slap that driver, I wanted to smash that cursed delivery box.
I wanted to hold her, to tell her to stop.
“Mom! I won’t eat anymore! I won’t get treated anymore!”
“I’m already dead! You don’t need to earn this money!”
“Look at your leg! It’s bleeding!”
I screamed into her ear, crying myself hoarse.
Mom seemed to sense something.
She shivered, looking back at the empty space behind her.
“Why does it feel like someone’s here…”
She mumbled, struggling to lift her electric scooter.
The handlebars were bent, the rearview mirror shattered.
But it could still be ridden.
She limped onto the scooter, pushing forward into the downpour, continuing her deliveries.
Her back, so stubborn, made me want to cry.
I floated right behind her.
Watching her deliver the porridge to the villa’s doorstep.
The villa’s owner, a woman, held her nose in disgust, taking the takeout.
She didn’t even say thank you, instead complaining, “What took you so long? The bag’s all wet.”
Mom just offered a placating smile.
“I’m so sorry, the rain was really heavy. Enjoy your meal, and please leave a good review.”
The door closed.
Mom stood under the mansion’s eaves, sheltering from the rain for a while.
She pulled out her phone and checked her balance.
With this order, her earnings for the day topped three hundred dollars.
Her eyes lit up.
“Mia’s dialysis fee for next week is covered.”
She patted the mud from her leg, then turned and plunged back into the rain, continuing her deliveries.
It was two in the morning.
The rain had eased, turning into a gentle drizzle.
The sensor light in the stairwell had been broken for ages, leaving it pitch black.
Mom dragged her injured leg, inching her way up, step by painful step.
With every step, she had to lean against the wall and catch her breath.
That leg was already swollen like a balloon, blood and fabric stuck together.
I floated ahead of her, watching her agony, my heart aching to the point of suffocation.
Finally home, Mom glanced down at herself as she entered – covered in mud.
She had been carefully protecting a plastic bag in her arms. She opened it and looked inside.
It was a slightly wrinkled box, soaked from the rain.
Written on it in English: “Winsor & Newton.”
The brand of paint every art student dreamed of.
It was expensive.
That small box cost several hundred dollars.
I had often gazed at it longingly through the art supply store window, but I’d never dared to mention it to Mom.
She actually remembered.
“Mia will be so happy now.”
Mom grinned, mud caked even in the wrinkles around her eyes.
She saw my door was closed, reached out to open it, then hesitated and pulled her hand back.
“It’s so late, Mia must be asleep.”
“If I go in, I’ll just wake her up. That girl’s a light sleeper; if she wakes up, she’ll just worry about me.”
Mom sighed.
She found a small stool in the corner and dragged it to my door, then sat down heavily.
Hiss-
Her wound burned. She gasped, sharp pain stealing her breath.
From under the coffee table, she pulled a bottle of antiseptic, gritted her teeth, and poured it directly onto the raw flesh.
I watched her tremble, her teeth biting into the back of her hand to silence any sound.
My tears fell, one by one, onto her wounded leg.
But the tears of a ghost, they have no warmth.
After tending to her wound, Mom leaned against the doorframe.
She hugged the paint box, pressed her ear to the door, listening for any movement inside.
“Mia, are you asleep?”
She whispered through the crack in the door, her voice as soft as water.
“Mom was amazing today, darling. I was the top earner, made over four hundred bucks.”
“With this box of paints, once you’re better, Mom will send you to New York.”
“I heard there’s an artist there who teaches painting.”
“Our Mia has such talent; you’ll definitely be a great painter someday.”
“Then, Mom won’t deliver food anymore. I’ll be your model, and cook you pot roast every day.”
She prattled on, her face glowing with a kind of happiness I’d never seen before.
It was an anticipation of the future, an unwavering belief in her daughter’s survival.
But she didn’t know that, just behind that door.
I was already lying in a pool of blood.
I reached out to touch her face.
“Mom…”
My hand passed through her cheek.
“I’m so sorry. I can’t stay with you…”
“Without me, you’ll live a good life…”
“You won’t have to struggle anymore!”
But Mom couldn’t hear me.
She was exhausted.
Even as she murmured, her eyelids grew heavy.
She fell asleep right there-hugging the paint box, leaning against my bedroom door on that little stool.
A faint smile still lingered on her lips.
Maybe in her dream, she saw me go to college.
Saw me healed. Saw us moving into a house full of light.
The rain had stopped. Morning sun streamed through the window, falling directly across Mom’s face.
She jerked awake.
Her first instinct was to check her phone for the time.
“Oh no! Rush hour is starting!”
She scrambled to her feet. The gash on her leg, after a night’s rest, had crusted into a dark scab. Every step sent a sharp, burning pain through her.
She ignored it.
Gently, she set the paint box down on the coffee table.
Then she hurried into the kitchen and, with practiced ease, slid a poached egg into a bowl.
It was her special brown sugar poached egg-my favorite, the one she always said would give me strength.
She put the bowl on the table, then hesitated before knocking on my door.
Her hand hovered in mid-air, then dropped.
“Let her sleep a little longer,” Mom murmured to herself.
She found a pen and paper, wrote a sticky note, and affixed it to my bedroom door.
“Food’s on the table, eat it while it’s hot. Your paints are on the shoe rack, Mom bought them specially for you. Mom loves you.”
Her handwriting was shaky, her hand still trembling.
Before leaving, she sniffed the air.
“Why is there a metallic scent?”
She looked around suspiciously.
Finally, her gaze fell on the wound on her leg.
“Must be the wound. Smells awful.”
She didn’t think much more of it, grabbed her helmet, and hurried out the door.
Noon, the sun blazed overhead.
Mom was out on a delivery when her phone rang.
It was Carol from next door.
“Carol, what’s up?”
Mom held the phone between her shoulder and ear, still climbing stairs.
On the other end, Carol’s voice, usually dripping with sarcasm, was now laced with pure panic.
“Elara Reed! What is going on at your place?!”
“Did something die in there? The stench is oozing out from under your door, flies everywhere! My grandson’s crying from the stench!”
“You need to come home and deal with it! It’s disgusting!”
Mom’s delivery fell to the ground, soup spilling everywhere.
But she didn’t even notice, her mind a blank.
Mia was still home!
“Mia…”
Mom raced downstairs like a madwoman.
She hopped on her beat-up scooter, ignoring red lights, driving against traffic, speeding frantically through the flow of cars.
The wind whipped her hair into a wild mess.
Her face was ghost-white, her lips trembling, as she kept muttering.
“It’s fine… it has to be fine…”
“It’s just the drain pipe clogged…”
“Mia’s sleeping… Mia’s painting…”
I followed behind her, watching her narrowly avoid several crashes, finally arriving home safely.
Carol was standing at the doorway, grumbling. Seeing Mom, she clutched her nose and backed away several steps.
“Oh, you’re finally back. Hurry, open the door and see, this is just terrible!”
Mom pushed through the main door. The smell was leaking from my room.
Her hand shook as she pulled out the key, but when she jammed it into the lock, it wouldn’t turn.
Desperate, Mom hurled the key to the floor and screamed.
“Mia! Open the door! Don’t scare me! Please!”
She threw her whole weight against it, shoving with all her strength.
The door gave away.
She stood frozen in the doorway, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
There I was, curled in a pool of blood. Beside me lay an unfinished painting.
In it, Mom was wearing a yellow raincoat, riding her scooter across a rainbow.
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