The Blood-Red Diary

1 On my tenth birthday, two blood-red lines appeared in my diary: [Do not make a wish for Dad to come home.] [Ten years from today, Mom dies.] I thought it was a prank and shoved the diary into my backpack. But after midnight, it flipped open on its own. [At 11:00 PM tonight, Dad will come home wearing a gray dress shirt.] [Do not let Mom ask about the gardenia perfume on his collar.] At exactly eleven, Maury walked in wearing that gray shirt, reeking of gardenia perfume. Sarah cautiously asked about the smell. He sneered. "You sit at home all day playing the nagging housewife, and I can't even get close to someone else?" He patted her cheek. "Stop throwing a fit. Focus on raising your little baggage and stay out of my business." The baggage was me. From then on, the diary revealed only two sentences a day. It told me what would happen but never how to save my mother. On the day of the divorce, Maury leaned against his car, indifferent. "You're dragging a kid, no money, no skills. Starve a few days and you'll figure out who puts a roof over your head." Sarah didn't look back. Maury didn't know the last page read: [Ten years from now, on a rainy night, he will beg Mom not to let go.] ... After Maury slammed the bedroom door shut, Sarah squatted by the bathtub, scrubbing that gray dress shirt. She poured half a bottle of laundry detergent, but the red smudge on the collar just wouldn't wash out. "Mom, what do gardenias smell like?" Her hands paused in the suds. "They're a very fragrant flower, Lily." "Then why don't you like them?" "They're too sweet. If you smell them for too long, they give you a headache." The faucet was running at full blast, but I could still hear her sniffling. The diary was a birthday gift from her. It had a light blue cover with a moon painted on it. She had also given me a red ink pen, telling me I could use it to write down all the secrets I was too scared to say out loud. That red pen was still sitting perfectly zipped in my pencil case. The words in the diary were not written by me. I took a graphite pencil and wrote: [Who are you?] No response. [Why does Mom die?] The page remained completely blank. At exactly 12:07 AM, two lines of red ink slowly bled through the paper. [Tomorrow at 8:15 AM, Grandma will come to take Mom's paycheck card.] [Hide it in the place you hate the most.] The place I hated the most was the dark cabinet under the kitchen sink. The next morning at seven, Sarah was frantically digging through her purse in the entryway. "That's so weird. Where is my bank card?" I had already shoved the card behind a bottle of dish soap. Just as I closed the cabinet door, the doorbell rang. It was 8:15 AM. Helen walked in holding a plastic bag of day-old bagels, not even bothering to take off her shoes. "Save the milk in the fridge for Maury. You and the girl can drink tap water. Don't go getting used to the good stuff." Sarah took the bag. "Helen, I need to keep a thousand dollars this month. Lily's school science camp is six hundred, and the minivan desperately needs a new alternator." Helen's face instantly darkened. "A little girl needs six hundred dollars just to go play outside for a day?" "Maury's company is tight on cash right now. You're his wife. If you don't help him, who will?" She held out her hand. "Give me the card." Sarah didn't move. "That is the money I earned." Helen glared at her for a few seconds before violently snatching Sarah's purse and dumping it out. She started ripping open the shoe cabinet and the hallway drawers. The noise woke Maury. He walked out of the bedroom, his hair a mess. He saw me first. "You didn't eat your cake last night?" He pulled the leftover strawberry cake from the fridge, meticulously picking off the crushed peanuts on top. "You're allergic. Don't eat things blindly." He handed the plate to me before finally looking at his mother. "What's all the screaming about so early?" Helen immediately pointed a bony finger at Sarah. "Your wife is hiding her paycheck!" Maury sighed heavily. "Sarah, just give her the card." "The business is struggling. Letting my mom hold onto the money is just keeping it safe for the family." Sarah looked him dead in the eye. "Last month, Lily had a 102-degree fever. I asked your mother for two hundred dollars for the urgent care co-pay, and she made me write her an IOU." Helen raised her voice to a screech. "Family or not, money is money! Who knows what you're actually spending it on?" Maury rubbed his temples. "It was two hundred bucks. Is it really worth holding a grudge over until now?" "What about Lily's science camp?" Sarah asked. "Just because the other kids are going doesn't mean she has to go." Maury nudged the cake plate closer to me. "Once the company bounces back, I'll buy you that telescope you wanted, Lily." I looked down at the cake. He remembered I was allergic to peanuts. He remembered I wanted a telescope. But he didn't remember that yesterday was my tenth birthday. Helen finally got her hands on my backpack. I rushed forward and hugged it to my chest. "It's not in here!" She yanked hard on the strap. The backpack hit the floor, and the blue diary slid out. I threw myself over it, pinning it to the floor. Maury frowned. "Lily, why are you acting so spoiled lately?" "The card isn't with Mom." The living room went dead silent for a second. Helen immediately locked her eyes on me. "Did you take it, you little thief?" Maury crouched down and grabbed my shoulders. His voice was gentle, but his fingers dug painfully into my collarbone. "Lily. Give the card to Dad." "I'll buy you something even better later." I swallowed the pain. "If I give it to Grandma, can I still go to the science camp?" Maury's gentle smile vanished. "Why are you exactly like your mother? Always obsessing over pennies." Sarah suddenly stepped forward and pulled me behind her. "She is not giving you the card." It was the very first time she had ever said no to Maury. Furious, Helen swept her arm across the table, knocking the strawberry cake onto the floor. White frosting splattered across the hardwood. "Just perfect! You and your daughter teaming up to steal from this family!" Maury looked at the ruined cake on the floor. He didn't stop his mother. "Sarah, don't tear this family apart over a few dollars." Sarah calmly walked over to the closet and grabbed the broom. "This family isn't falling apart over a piece of plastic." Maury grabbed his keys and stormed out with Helen. Once they were gone, I pulled the bank card out from under the sink. "Mom, I'm sorry." She pulled me into a tight hug. "You didn't do anything wrong, Lily." "Keep this hidden for Mom a little longer." At 12:07 AM, the diary revealed two new sentences. [Tomorrow, Dad will treat Mom incredibly well.] [So well that she will almost forget about tonight.] The next evening, Maury came home holding a bouquet of white lilies, a box of expensive lemon tarts, and a star-projector night light. "My mom has a hot temper. I'm apologizing for her." He crouched down by my bed, plugging in the projector. Blue stars crawled across my ceiling. "The telescope will have to wait, but this should do for now." My nose stung. When I was little and had that terrible fever, Maury was the one who held me in the emergency room waiting area all night long. Sarah always told me he wasn't a bad person, just exhausted from work and quick to anger. "We're going out to a nice dinner tonight. Making up for your birthday." I almost nodded in pure joy. But then I remembered the diary in my backpack, and a hot, sharp pain hit my chest. Sitting inside the private dining room of the upscale restaurant was a young woman. She wore a white knit dress and a thick gold bracelet. The air around her smelled heavily of gardenias. "Sarah! I've been dying to meet you." Maury pulled out a chair for her. "This is Rachel, the new sales manager at the firm. She closed that massive account last month." Rachel pulled out a thick, expensive-looking birthday card. "Happy birthday, Lily." I didn't take it. When I ordered the glazed salmon, Maury immediately stopped the waiter. "No peanuts, and absolutely no peanut oil. The kid is strictly allergic." He said it so naturally, so fiercely protective, as if the man who called me baggage two nights ago didn't even exist. Sarah's eyes were fixed entirely on Rachel's gold bracelet. Last month, on Sarah's birthday, Maury said the company was swamped. He didn't even say happy birthday. But I had seen that exact gold bracelet sitting in his online shopping cart. Rachel touched her wrist, noticing the stare. "Maury insisted on getting this for me. He said I saved the company a fortune." Maury chuckled. "You reward the people who earn it." Sarah finally spoke. "Lily's science camp is six hundred dollars. Yesterday you said we couldn't waste money like that." Maury's smile flatlined. "Do we really have to do the accounting during dinner?" "I'm just asking a question." "Rachel brings actual value to the company. What do you do?" "You make minimum wage at a local bakery. The mortgage, the utilities, the groceries. Who carries all of that?" "I paid her tuition this month," Sarah said quietly. "Only because I transferred that money into your account." "That was my paycheck." Maury leaned back in his chair, scoffing. "If I hadn't called in a favor with the owner, you wouldn't have even gotten hired at that bakery." Rachel awkwardly slid the birthday envelope closer to me. "Sarah, please don't fight over a few dollars. I'll pay for Lily's science camp." "Is there six hundred dollars in that envelope?" Sarah asked. Rachel froze. "Well, no, of course it's more than that." "So, six hundred dollars goes from my husband's pocket into yours, and suddenly it's a charity handout from you to my daughter?" Maury slammed his fork down onto the porcelain plate. "Lily!" Sarah pulled my chair closer to hers. "Did she ask a question that wasn't true?" Rachel's eyes immediately welled up with tears. "Sarah, I think you're having a massive misunderstanding. Maury and I are strictly professional." Right on cue, the dining room door swung open. Helen walked in. Seeing Rachel on the verge of tears, she immediately sat down next to her, patting her hand. "Rachel is just too soft-hearted." "Some women have absolutely no skills of their own, so they just get vicious when they see someone else succeeding." The waiter walked in carrying a beautifully plated, complimentary dessert with a sparkler in it. Rachel pushed the plate perfectly in front of Maury. "Today marks your tenth year running the company. I asked the chef to prepare something special." Today was also Maury and Sarah's tenth wedding anniversary. Maury had clearly completely forgotten. He accepted the plate, his smile melting into something incredibly tender. "You always pay attention to the details." On the car ride home, Rachel called. Maury's voice instantly dropped into a soft, soothing hum. "If you like it, buy it. If you need more on the card, just let me know." Sarah stared out the passenger window into the dark street. "You buy her gold bracelets. You give her a blank check." "But you couldn't spare six hundred dollars for your own daughter's education." Maury abruptly pulled the SUV over to the shoulder of the road. "Sarah, are you ever going to drop this?" "She earns the money I spend on her. What do you do besides tally up every cent and complain?" Sarah's voice was barely a whisper. "What about me? I've stood by you for ten years. I've taken care of this family for ten years." Maury went silent for a few long seconds. He popped open the center console and pulled out a fresh box of expensive migraine medication. "You've been having those bad headaches again, right? I had someone pick this up from the pharmacy today." He reached over and wrapped his hand over Sarah's. "It's not that I don't appreciate what you do." "But I kill myself out there all day, and when I come home, I have to listen to you audit my life. Who could survive that?" Sarah didn't pull her hand away. When we got home, Maury poured her a glass of warm water and heated up a piece of the lemon tart. Sarah looked at me and whispered, "Your dad didn't use to be like this." "Then when is he going to change back?" I asked. She didn't have an answer. At 12:07 AM, the diary surfaced with new text. [Every time he destroys Mom a little bit more, he gives her a piece of candy.] [The diary cannot tell you if that candy actually tastes sweet.] I picked up my pen and wrote: [Is Rachel a bad person?] The page gave absolutely no answer. On Saturday, Maury said he was taking me to buy a new study desk. Halfway there, Rachel called him. Ultimately, he parked the SUV outside a luxury condo sales center. Rachel was already waiting by the glass doors, holding a glossy floor plan. "Rachel is scouting corporate housing for our out-of-state hires. You two wait in the kids' play area." Sarah glanced at the floor plan in Rachel's hands. "Corporate housing requires the CEO to personally check which direction the master bedroom faces?" Maury scowled. "Do you have to make every single thing sound so filthy?" Half an hour later, Sarah's boss called her in for an emergency shift at the bakery. Maury didn't even look up from the brochures. "You go. Lily can stay with me." Sarah crouched down to my eye level. "Do you want to come with me?" I glanced at the heavy black leather briefcase sitting on the coffee table next to Maury. Last night, the diary had told me: [At 3:20 PM, Mom's money will be inside the black briefcase.] [You can only take away one photograph.] I shook my head. At exactly 3:20 PM, Maury stepped outside to take a phone call. The real estate agent ushered Rachel upstairs to look at the model unit. I bolted over to the sofa and unzipped the black briefcase. Sitting right on top was a residential purchase agreement. The buyer's name was Rachel. Total price: $500,000. Down payment: $150,000. The payment source was Maury and Sarah's joint checking account. And $10,000 of that down payment was the college fund my maternal grandmother had left for me before she died. I raised my smartwatch and snapped a picture. Just as the shutter clicked, Maury's voice boomed behind me. "What the hell are you doing?" He ripped the contract out of my hands, his fingers clamping down brutally on my upper arm. "Who told you to go through my things?" "This is Mom's money!" "Did your mother put you up to this? Is she making you spy on me?" Tears streamed down my face from the blinding pain in my arm. Maury ripped the smartwatch off my wrist and frantically swiped through the gallery, deleting everything. But the photo had already auto-synced to my school cloud drive. The watch gallery was empty. His breathing slowed down. He rolled up my sleeve. Dark, angry red bruises were already blooming across my skin. He went to the reception desk, got a bag of ice, and pressed it gently against my arm. "Does it hurt?" I didn't say a word. "That condo is just a real estate investment for the company. It's not a gift for Aunt Rachel." He dug into his pocket and pulled out a gourmet chocolate square, double-checking the label to ensure it was nut-free before handing it to me. "Don't tell Mom about this. You know how she overthinks things." So that was it. The candy he gave me was literal. That night, when Sarah saw the dark bruises on my arm, the color drained from her face. "Who did this to you?" Maury tossed his car keys casually onto the counter. "She was digging through my confidential work files. I pulled her away." "You pulled her away, and it left bruises like that?" "I already iced it for her. Stop assuming the worst in me." I opened the cloud app on my tablet and pulled up the photo of the contract. Sarah read the lines of text. Her hands began to tremble violently. "My mother's money for Lily is in here." Maury raised his voice, going on the offensive. "It's just a temporary cash flow transfer!" "Then why is Rachel's name on the deed?" "Because she qualifies for the first-time homebuyer tax credit!" "Maury, do you honestly think I'm that stupid?" Maury fell silent for a few seconds. Then, his tone completely softened into a defeated, weary sigh. "Once the market goes up and we flip the property, I'll put the money back in the joint account with interest." He walked into the kitchen and boiled a pot of fresh chicken noodle soup, dropping in a perfectly poached egg—Sarah's absolute favorite comfort food. Ten years ago, when Maury was broke and trying to win her heart, he had cooked this exact same soup for her. Back then, the noodles were mushy and the egg was broken, but Sarah had cried and said it was the best thing she had ever tasted. She sat at the table staring at the steaming bowl for a very long time. Then, she stood up, picked up the bowl, and dumped the entire thing straight into the trash can. "Tomorrow morning, I'm going to the bank to print out the full transaction history." Maury froze, the towel he was using to dry his hair dropping to his side. "Don't push me, Sarah." "You already took your anger out on our daughter today." Sarah grabbed my hand, pulled me into the bedroom, and for the first time in ten years, locked the door from the inside. I pulled out the diary and asked: [Is Rachel going to have a baby in her stomach?] The paper remained blank. At 12:07 AM, two lines slowly formed on the page. [Tomorrow evening at 5:40 PM, Mom will bleed.] [Dad will hold her hand first. And then, he will let it go.] The next afternoon, Helen barged into the apartment carrying a stack of loan guarantor documents. Maury's company had hit a massive cash flow crisis, and he needed to leverage our apartment for a $200,000 home equity loan. "Just sign your name. It's just a formality." Helen aggressively shoved a pen into Sarah's hand. Sarah flipped to the signature page and dropped the pen. "I'm not signing this." Helen's face turned ugly. "You bake bread for a living. You offer zero help to this family, and now you want to drag Maury down?" Sarah slid the contract back across the table. "He drained our joint accounts to buy a half-million-dollar condo for Rachel. I still haven't gotten an answer for that." Helen sneered. "So what if he bought Rachel a place?" "She's carrying Maury's flesh and blood in her stomach. Did you expect him to let her sleep on the street?" The living room plunged into a suffocating silence. Maury violently kicked his chair back and stood up. "Mom!" Sarah slowly turned her head to look at Maury. "She's pregnant?" Maury looked away, refusing to meet her eyes. "It's only been two months. We aren't entirely sure yet." "What does 'not entirely sure' mean?" "I never planned on divorcing you, Sarah." "Let the kid be born. Once we do a paternity test and confirm it, we'll figure out how to handle it." Sarah stared at him as if looking at a monster. "Then what the hell are Lily and I?" "You're my family." Maury stepped forward and grabbed her hands tightly. "Sarah, I swear to God, I never once thought about throwing you away." "Rachel is young. She's naive. But since the baby is here, I can't just abandon it." "You're the mature one. You've always been the kindest person I know." Sarah ripped her hands out of his grip. "So because I'm mature, my reward is cleaning up your filthy messes for the rest of my life?" "I told you, I will handle it." "Handle it how? Let her live in a luxury condo paid for with my mother's money, have your bastard child, and then expect me to play the gracious wife?" Helen stepped up and cracked a brutal slap right across Sarah's face. "Who gave you the right to scream at my son!" I threw my entire body weight into Helen, shoving her away. "Don't hit my mom!" Helen stumbled backward, her back slamming hard into the decorative display shelf. A heavy crystal vase tipped over the edge, plummeting straight down. Sarah spun around, throwing her arms over my head to shield me. The vase shattered against her temple. Glass exploded across the floor. Thick, dark blood instantly poured down the side of her face, dripping past her eyebrow. Maury's face went completely pale. He lunged forward, pressing his bare hands frantically against the deep gash. "Don't move. I'm taking you to the ER right now." His hands were shaking violently. Sarah looked up at him, and for a fraction of a second, I saw a tiny sliver of hope flicker in her eyes. He grabbed his car keys and wrapped his heavy coat around her shivering shoulders. Then, his cell phone rang. Rachel's caller ID flashed on the screen. Maury didn't answer. The phone rang a second time. Then a third. Helen reached over and hit speakerphone. Rachel's hysterical sobbing echoed through the bloody living room. "Maury, my stomach hurts so bad." "The doctor said I might lose the baby. Please, you have to come." Maury's hands, which were pressing hard against Sarah's bleeding head, suddenly went rigid. Sarah looked at him. "Weren't you taking me to the hospital?" "Your cut is just external." "I feel dizzy." "I'll have my mom take you." Helen immediately scoffed. "Who's going to clean up this disaster on the floor? I don't have time for this." Rachel let out another agonizing wail through the phone speaker. Maury pulled his hands away. The pressure was gone, and fresh hot blood spilled down Sarah's cheek again. "Sarah, just call a cab." "She's carrying a baby. If something goes wrong, that's a human life." Sarah just stared at his bloodstained hands. When the front door slammed shut, the grandfather clock in the hallway read exactly 5:40 PM. I rode in the ambulance with Sarah. The doctor put four stitches in her temple. He said if the glass had hit a fraction of an inch lower, she would have lost her eye. The two prophecy lines in my diary had faded into the paper. In the blank space below, two new lines bled through. [Leave tonight.] [Do not take the stairs in your building.] Sarah stared at those lines for a very long time. "Did the diary tell you why I have to leave?" I shook my head. "It only tells me what's going to happen. It never answers my questions." Sarah reached out and gently rubbed the dark bruises on my arm. "That's okay." "Mom isn't leaving because a book told her to." "I'm leaving because earlier today... he held my hand, and then he chose to let it go." When we got back to the apartment, the shattered glass and dried blood were still all over the floor. Sarah took the emergency fire escape stairs. She packed exactly two suitcases. Birth certificates, my school uniforms, a few changes of clothes, and the blue star projector lamp. Before we walked out, she took off her wedding ring and pinned it down over the signed divorce papers on the kitchen counter. We boarded a Greyhound bus out of the city at 5:00 AM. Maury got home an hour later. His first voicemail was incredibly tender. "Does your head still hurt, babe? I bought antibiotics and fresh gauze. I'll change your bandages tonight." Half an hour later, he must have opened the closet and seen her side completely gutted. The second voicemail was filled with venom. "Sarah, stop acting insane." "Lily has school tomorrow. Bring my daughter home right now." By noon, my homeroom teacher informed him that I had been officially withdrawn from the district. The bakery owner told him Sarah had quit effectively immediately, and the bank notified him that the joint accounts had been frozen pending litigation. Maury finally panicked. He tracked down our bus route and floored his SUV down the highway to catch us. The Greyhound had just pulled out of a rest stop when a horn blared aggressively behind us. Maury swerved his SUV into the shoulder, cutting off the lane, and jumped out of the car, sprinting toward the bus windows. "Sarah!" "Lily!" He was desperately waving the blue star lamp we had left behind in the rush. "Lily, it's Dad! Let me take you home!" I saw him. And I knew he saw me looking down at him. I didn't cry. I didn't beg the bus driver to pull over. I opened my smartwatch, deleted the contact name "Dad," and changed it to "Maury." Then, I reached up and slowly pulled the heavy fabric curtain shut. Just before the window was completely covered, I saw Maury standing frozen on the side of the highway, completely alone.