Mother Wants My Winning Ticket

When I opened my eyes, the air felt differentthicker, colder, and smelling faintly of cheap floral perfume and hairspray. I realized with a jolt that I was back. I was back on the day that had dismantled my life.

It was the afternoon of my cousin Tiffanys wedding. Earlier that day, during the reception, I had managed to snag several party favorslittle gold envelopes tucked into the centerpieces. In this small, judgmental town, these were the "lucky" favors Tiffanys new husband had boasted about: scratch-off lottery tickets.

No one could have guessed that one of those tickets was a ten-million-dollar winner.

In my first life, I had run home, breathless and sobbing with joy, wanting to tell my mother the news. My fathers stomach cancer had just been diagnosed; we were drowning in debt. This money meant he could finally get the surgery he needed in the city. It was a miracle.

But my mothers reaction had been a bucket of ice water to the face. She didnt celebrate. She didnt cry in relief. Instead, her face hardened into that familiar mask of stony "decency." She snatched the ticket from my hand, insisting it belonged to Tiffany.

"We are honest, hardworking people, Julie," she had lectured, her voice vibrating with a terrifying kind of pride. "The poor must have dignity. We don't take advantage of family. We don't steal luck that isn't ours."

I remembered the aftermath with excruciating clarity. My father died six months later in a cramped, humid bedroom. My mother, while trying to walk the neighborhoods "village idiot" back to his house to prove what a good neighbor she was, was struck by a car. She survived, but she was permanently disabled.

The relatives who had praised her "noble heart" brought over a few cartons of eggs and some "thoughts and prayers," but they never mentioned the mountain of medical debt we owed.

Left with nothing, my mother turned her desperation into a weapon against me. She tore up my university acceptance letter. Then, she drugged my dinner with sedatives, hoping to marry me off to the neighbors sona man with the mind of a child and a family with enough "bride price" money to solve her problems.

"Don't blame me, Julie," shed whispered, her eyes brimming with calculated tears as I drifted into unconsciousness. "Blame the world. People are cruel, and money is the root of all evil. A mother has to do what she has to do..."

In the end, unable to endure the suffocating shame, I had stepped off the roof of a six-story building.

"Seriously? You're sure the winning ticket was from the favors at the reception?"

"Positive. The clerk at the gas station said Derek bought two hundred tickets there right before the rehearsal dinner.f

The voice on the other end of the phone sighed heavily. It was my Aunt Linda.

"Ugh, if Id known, I would have told them to just put two-dollar bills in those envelopes. Ten million dollars... God, I just hope whoever got it has enough of a conscience to bring it back to Tiffany!"

My mother was at the stove, the phone on speaker. She hummed in sympathy as she stirred a pot of thin soup, her brow furrowed as she cursed the "ungrateful" guest who was probably hiding the ticket right now.

The ticket.

My pupils contracted. The phantom sensation of being dragged across a carpet by a man twice my size flared in my nerves. The sound of my own skull cracking against the pavementa wet, sickening thudechoed in my ears.

I gasped for air, my right hand clenching instinctively.

I looked down. My knuckles were white, gripping the cold brass handle of my bedroom door. This wasn't a dream. This was the morning after the wedding.

In my previous life, I thought I was having a run of bad luck. Id tripped on the porch coming home from the reception and spent the afternoon nursing a bruised hip. But it was that very day that Id realized I held the golden ticket.

And it was that day my mother had marched me to Tiffanys house to hand over our future.

Were poor, but we have our souls, she had said.

A sharp, rhythmic banging started at my door.

"Julie? You grabbed some of those envelopes, didn't you? Open them up! Let's see if you're the one holding onto Tiffany's luck."

My mothers voice was sharp with a sudden, opportunistic "integrity." I heard her heels clicking toward the door.

A wave of cold fury washed over me. I had one goal: She could never, ever know that I had the ticket.

I turned the lock.

I fumbled with the pockets of my jacket, pulling out seven small envelopes. I found itthe one with the specific serial number etched into my brain.

I pulled up the lottery results on my phone. The numbers matched perfectly. I checked them once, twice, three times. Then, I slid the winning ticket into the pages of an old, dusty textbook at the bottom of my shelf.

I took a deep breath, messed up my hair to look like Id been sleeping, and opened the door.

My mother looked ready to break the door down. Her face was a map of righteous anxiety.

"What are you doing in here? Sleeping the day away while your cousin is in a crisis?" she snapped, looking me over with disdain. "Locking the door in the middle of the day... youre becoming so secretive. I cant rely on you for anything."

Her eyes darted to my desk, landing on the pile of candy and envelopes.

"Did you win anything?" she asked, her voice dropping into a probe.

I picked up a hairbrush and shrugged. "I haven't even looked."

"Well, look now! Your aunt said theres a massive winner out there. Tiffany and Derek are practically camped out at the lottery office waiting to see who shows up. If you have it, we need to get it back to her immediately. Shes family, Julie. Don't let her suffer."

In my old life, I would have argued. I would have said that a gift is a gift, and if Tiffany wanted the money, she shouldn't have given the tickets away. But I knew better now. You can't argue with a martyr.

I grabbed the remaining six losing envelopes and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" she yelled.

"To the gas station to check them!" I called back.

My mother didn't know how to use the lottery app. She didn't understand that a jackpot this big couldn't be claimed at a local convenience store anyway.

"If you won, you give it back!" she shouted after me. "Don't be a thief! Honesty is the only thing we own!"

When I got to the station, Tiffany and Derek were there, looking disheveled. Tiffany was still wearing her white silk rehearsal wrap with a fur stole, looking wildly out of place. She was accosting anyone who looked like theyd been at the wedding.

When she saw me, her eyes lit up with a predatory hunger. She grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin.

"Julie! Why are you here? Did you win? Tell me you won!"

I gently pried her hand off. I looked her dead in the eye and gave her a bright, vacant smile.

"I did! I'm here to claim it!"

Tiffanys face went pale, then red. She snatched the stack of envelopes out of my hand before I could stop her. She tore through them until she found the one Id left on topthe one that had won exactly one hundred dollars.

Her face fell. "This? This is all?"

"Yeah!" I chirped, acting thrilled. "A hundred bucks! Can you believe it? Thats like a week of groceries!"

I took the ticket back, scanned it, and pocketed the cash. I made a show of tossing the other losing tickets into the trash can.

"What are you guys doing here, anyway?" I asked innocently.

Tiffany didn't even answer. She turned away, scanning the parking lot for her next victim.

I walked away, my heart hammering against my ribs. Stage one was complete. They wouldn't suspect me for a while. Now, I just had to get to the city.

On my way home, a hand dropped onto my shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"Hey, kiddo. Look what I got you."

I turned to see my father. His face was sallow, a yellowish tint to his skin that made my throat ache. He was smiling, though his lips were pale. He had been sick for a month, and we hadn't even raised half the money for his initial consultations.

He pointed to a suitcase on the sidewalk. It was a soft rose-pink, hardshell, with spinning wheels. It looked expensivetoo expensive for a man who was skipping meals to pay for "stomach medicine" that was really just antacids.

My eyes blurred with tears.

In my previous life, my mother had forced me to hand over the ten million. Tiffany had done a fake little dance of "Oh, but your father is so sick, are you sure?"

And my mother had waved her off. "Everyone has their cross to bear. We aren't going to use your good fortune to fix our problems."

Tiffany had pocketed the ticket and never looked back. When we finally went to her to beg for a loan a month later, shed looked at us with "pity" and said, "Id love to, Aunt Bethany, but with Julie starting school and your husbands condition... Id never see that money again. It would be like throwing it down a drain."

That was the day my fatherthe strongest man I knewwiped away a tear and told us, "Stop. No more doctors. I'm done."

Now, looking at the pink suitcase, I realized he had spent his secret savings to make sure I went to college in style.

"Dad..." I choked out.

"Its not much," he said, rubbing his hands together nervously. "But the guy at the store said all the girls at the university use these now. Itll last you years."

I didn't scold him for the money. I just grabbed the handle and hugged him.

"Its perfect, Dad. Lets go home."

Back at the house, my mother eyed the suitcase with a scowl.

"Wasteful," she muttered. "Your Aunt Linda gave me that old black duffel bag Tiffany used. Its a bit dusty, but I could have fixed the zipper. Why spend money on vanity?"

My father smiled sheepishly. "It wasn't that much, Beth. Only about sixty dollars. It's an investment."

My mother groaned at the "extravagance," but since the money was already spent, she just went back to the kitchen.

During dinner, I pushed a piece of broccoli around my plate and said as casually as possible, "Dad, I want you to drive me to campus tomorrow. Its my first year, and I don't want to take the bus with all this luggage. Plus, the city is dangerous. Id feel better if you were there."

My father nodded immediately. "Of course. A-State is far. You shouldn't be wandering around alone."

My mother slammed her fork down. "She's nineteen! She needs to be independent. And why tomorrow? Move-in isn't for another two weeks."

My heart sped up. In my last life, I had stayed behind to help her, and that delay had cost my father his life.

"They sent an email," I lied, holding up my phone screen too far away for her to read. "Orientation and early seminars start this week. I just saw it today. I have to go."

My mother looked at me suspiciously. "Your father isn't well. I should go. Ive never even seen the city."

She shot my father a look of pure resentment. "I married a man who cant even take me on a vacation. My life is just one long struggle."

My father looked down at his plate, the light leaving his eyes.

"Mom, Id love for you to come," I said, my voice sweet as honey, "but I saw Billy wandering around near the guitar factory today. He looked totally lost. You know his mom relies on you to watch out for him. If you leave for two days, who knows where that poor boy will end up?"

Billy was the "neighborhood project" my mother used to bolster her reputation as a saint. Just last week, shed stayed up all night finding him after hed wandered off. She loved the way the neighbors whispered about her "golden heart."

My mother hesitated. She looked at the plate of cookies a neighbor had brought over as a "thank you" for her kindness.

She sighed, a martyrs smile touching her lips. "True. If that poor soul wanders off and gets hurt, Id never forgive myself. Everyone knows Im the only one he trusts."

She waved a hand dismissively. "Fine. Let your father go. Im just a pack mule anyway."

The next morning, my father and I stood by the road with the pink suitcase. The November air was biting, but my palms were sweaty with anticipation.

Just get to the city. Claim the ticket. Get the surgery.

But before the bus arrived, two figures appeared, walking quickly toward us.

It was Tiffany and Aunt Linda. They weren't just walking; they were nearly running.

My stomach dropped. I gripped the handle of my suitcase.

"Julie! You're leaving already?" Aunt Linda called out. Her smile didn't reach her eyes, which were fixed on my luggage.

"Yeah," I said, trying to sound normal. "It's a long trip. I want to get there before dark."

Tiffany looked like a ghost. Her eyes were sunken, dark circles weighing them down. She wasn't even looking at me; she was staring at my suitcase like she could see through the plastic.

"Tiffany, shouldn't you be on your honeymoon?" I asked.

She didn't answer. She stepped forward and grabbed the handle of my suitcase, trying to pull it toward her.

"Wait," she said, her voice raspy. "My mom and Aunt Bethany were talking. They said its weird youre leaving so early. Almost like... like youre running away."

"I'm going to school, Tiffany," I said, holding on tight.

"If you have nothing to hide," Tiffany snapped, her facade finally cracking, "then you won't mind if we check your things. My ten-million-dollar ticket is missing, Julie. And suddenly youre rushing off to the city?"

"This is insane," I said, looking to my father for help.

But then, my mother appeared from around the corner of the house. She walked up and put a heavy hand on my shoulder.

"I called them," my mother said, her voice cold. "Tiffany has been crying all night. Its only fair, Julie. If youre innocent, you have nothing to fear. We are honest people. We don't leave town with shadows over our names."

She nodded to Tiffany. "Go ahead. Check it."