Seven years later.
The night was cold and quiet when Belinda finished her shift and returned home to the crappy Los Angeles apartment where she lived.
Upon opening the door, she was surprised to see her mother leap from the sofa where she was sitting and hurry towards her with a worried expression on her face.
"They came looking for you."
As soon as Belinda heard those words, her whole body stiffened in fear. She didn't need to inquire as to who 'they' were.
A glance at their barely unrecognizable living room, which appeared to have been ransacked thoroughly.
Their sofas and chairs shoved to the side. Lamp and photographs strewn across the floor. Drawers from the cupboard emptied, with the contents adorning the floor.
All of this told her all she needed to know: that the loan sharks had just visited them again for the second time that week.
Goosebumps broke out on her body, and Belinda turned searching eyes at her mother.
Searching for any signs that they had done her any harm, and when she found none, she hurried to the sofa her mother had been sitting on earlier and perched on it.
Burying her head in her hands. Belinda was one step away from shivering in fear. She couldn't figure out what the loan sharks were up to.
They'd given her a month to pay up, or they'd have to rely on the vile and obscene threats they'd made.
That was why Belinda had been working her ass off, shift after shift, attempting to raise the money, but despite her best efforts, she had not been successful.
And now she only had two weeks left. Was it the reason they came? To remind her of the importance of the situation.
Belinda's heart thudded loudly in her chest as she knew that whatever threats they'd made would soon become a reality unless she paid up.
Time was running out, and she didn't know what to do. How to go about this situation.
Feeling a warm hand on her arm, Belinda looked down, realizing her mother had followed her across the room and was now sitting right next to her on the sofa. And she was still wearing that worried expression which did nothing but increase her own tenfold.
"What—what are we going to do now?"
"I don't know," Belinda groaned, her head buried in her hands once more.
"Wwhat what do you mean you don't know?" Elena said in shaky voice. Her anxiety was palpable. "You have to do something. You must know something," she pleaded urgently.
There was a certain quality and inflection that had entered Elena's tone, which caused Belinda to raise her head again and look at her mother.
At the dark circle under her eyes from lack of sleep. At the lean structures of her face, and at how disheveled she appeared. A far cry from the woman she once used to be when their family was still well-off.
Now she was just an alcoholic. A woman whose day started and ended in alcohol. A woman who, when they had needed her, had been so wasted they had to fend for themselves and her.
A woman who broke her promises easily because she was too drunk to remember them.
So, it came as a surprise to Belinda to realize that for the first time in several years, her mother did not smell strongly of alcohol. And appeared to be— half sober, at least enough to hold a sensible conversation and remember it. Belinda's brows came down in a frown.
"You have to do something." Elena grasped her hands, a look of total devastation on her face. And when Belinda did not respond to her, she cried, "How are we going to survive. They took all the money I stashed. All my liquors are gone."
So, this was what this was about. Belinda snatched her hands away.
Once again, her mother has proven to be only worried about herself. Worried, she won't be able to drown herself in alcohol and forget her responsibilities. While she; Belinda was out of her mind with
anxiety and worry. When it was all her mother's fault to begin with.
They did been living just fine after their family lost everything. They had been happy. Poor, but happy if her mother hadn't...
Belinda leapt off the sofa, pacing furiously.
"It's all your fault," she said angrily to her mother. "We wouldn't be in this problem if you hadn't borrowed all that money from loan sharks."
"Don't you dare act as if you didn't benefit from it." Her mother stood up as well, towering over her. "If I can remember correctly, you were thrilled when we moved houses. From that rathole we were living at to this place," she pointed out. "You enjoyed the things I bought with it."
"That was when I thought you earned the money, gotten it from a friend or something. You told me an old friend had given it to us. And don't you dare act as if you did it for us. You spent eighty percent of the money on your pills and alcohol. The remaining twenty was just to give us the impression you did it for us."
"Fine, I did it for myself. It's that what you want to hear. I was tired of living like a low life, I wanted to enjoy a little."
"At whose expense," Belinda cried. "You gave them my name that I will be the one to pay."
"Belinda, I can hardly reverse what has already been done. What's done is done. All we have to think about is how to repay the money."
Belinda set her mouth, displeased.
The living room was suddenly blanketed in silence until her mother said in a low voice, "We could always ask your sister for money,"
"Oh Puleeze. Dakota practically disowned us the day she got married. Do you think we have the means to reach out to her? How do we find someone who doesn't want to be found."
Belinda held resentment for a lot of people, and one of them was her sister.
Dakota had gotten married to a rich tycoon, right after their father's Ponzi scheme had been unearthed and became public knowledge.
At her new husband's ultimatum, Dakota had disowned them, not wanting to be associated with the name Gibson again. And for many years, Belinda harbored resentment for her older sister for abandoning them, though at times, she felt she understood the reason for Dakota's decision.
Dakota just wanted a new life, a fresh start, away from being the daughter of a con artist.
It was a reality Belinda could relate to. Because every so often she, too, wished she could have a fresh start. But she knew she could never abandon any of her family the way Dakota had done. Especially not her sister, Mia. That was why they have to work it out.
Taking a long breath, Belinda turned to her mother who at her earlier outburst had kept quiet and was now sitting on the sofa and said,
"You have to find a job, that's the only way we can clear this debt."
"A job?" Her mother leapt out of the sofa faster than Belinda thought was possible. And then she cried, "Your father would never have let me work."
"Well, father is not here!" Belinda screamed. Stunning both herself and Elena with the force of that shout. Belinda hadn't had cause to behave like this in the past, but she guessed she had had enough. She was fed up and tired.
Her mother had to get her acts rights or there would be consequences.
"Whether you like it or not, you are going to work. You have to work. Do you understand what I am saying?" Belinda clutched her mother's arms.
There must have been something the woman had seen in her eyes or perhaps in the way she had spoken just now because her jaw dropped open.
"Oh my God," her mother breathed out at last. "Belinda, is there something you are not telling me."
Belinda fought back tears in her eyes as she tried to answer her mother. "They said they will take Mia if we didn't provide the money.