“DO WHAT HE TELLS YOU!”
My mother-in-law slammed her palm onto the table so hard I stopped in the living-room doorway.
My daughter was on the floor.
Her clothes were dirty. Tears ran down her cheeks, and her palms were red from crawling around collecting the toys scattered across the room.
Her cousin stood over her.
He dropped another toy beside her hand.
“Pick that up too.”
My daughter reached for it before she even looked up.
“Don’t you dare talk to my daughter like that!”
Everyone froze.
I crossed the room and pulled her to her feet. She immediately slipped behind me, clutching the back of my shirt.
“Mom…”
I turned enough to see her face.
“Why were you on the floor?”
“She’s doing her chores,” my mother-in-law said.
My daughter shook her head.
“They’re not chores.”
Her fingers tightened around my shirt.
“She makes me do everything he says.”
I looked at her cousin. Then at the toys around his feet.
That was when I noticed the sheet of paper taped beside the refrigerator.
I walked over and ripped it down.
My daughter’s name appeared again and again.
Clean his toys.
Bring his snacks.
Pick up his mess.
Give him the remote.
Her cousin’s column was almost empty.
For a moment, the only sound I could hear was my daughter trying to stop crying behind me.
“What the hell is this?”
