I looked at both of them, and I saw absolutely no guilt in their faces, only a desperate fear disguised as misplaced authority.
They were terrified that I would earn more than them, and they were terrified of losing the financial wallet they had been squeezing dry for years.
Then, quite suddenly, I stopped crying altogether.
I stood up slowly, walked over to the dresser, grabbed the buzzing razor, and stepped into the bathroom.
In front of the large mirror, I saw the bare, uneven patch of hair on my head, which looked like an open, bleeding wound.
Without saying a single word to them, I turned the razor back on and finished the task.
I shaved off every last strand of my hair until there was nothing left for them to use to humiliate me ever again.
When I stepped out of the bathroom, Patrick looked at me with a mixture of confusion and genuine fear.
“What on earth are you doing to yourself?”
I gave him a cold, barely visible smile.
“You are absolutely right. I am resigning tomorrow.
I will stay home every single day to take care of you, just like you wanted.”
Evelyn clapped her hands together with a triumphant and nasty smile.
“That is much better. You finally understand your place in this family.”
That night, while they both slept peacefully, I quietly opened my private online banking application on my tablet.
I transferred all of my personal savings to a secret account in my mother’s name, canceled Patrick’s and his mother’s additional credit cards, stopped all automatic bill payments, and sent a private note to my assistant saying I would be working remotely due to a family emergency.
Then, I turned off my cell phone and tossed it into the drawer.
If they had decided to cut my hair to take away my dignity, I was going to cut off something that would hurt them far more: their access to my money.
And they had absolutely no idea what would happen when the sun finally rose the next morning.
