Death gives you a terrible kind of clarity. After dying once, I remembered every single word in my niece Chloe’s diary. She’d written: August 15th. Aunt Ellie bought me a new phone, but she got her daughter the latest model. It’s her way of reminding me I’m just an outsider here. She forgot that I took her in when no one else would. She forgot the sleepless nights I spent by her bedside when she was sick. She forgot that to save her from feeling like a second-class citizen in my own home, I bought two of everything. None of that made it into her diary. Instead, I was beaten to death by her ignorant, brutish father—my own brother—over a fabricated argument. When I woke up, reborn, the clock was ticking backwards. It was August 14th. In front of the whole family, I placed two identical, brand-new, top-of-the-line phones on the table. One for my daughter, Annie, and one for Chloe. As my niece’s eyes widened in a performance of surprise, I stroked her hair, my voice as smooth as honey. “Chloe, honey, your dad will need to pay me back for the phone. I just fronted the money for it. And since the factory is struggling, maybe it’s a good time for him to settle up for all your years of room and board, too.” 1 I set the two identical boxes on the coffee table, one in front of my daughter, Annie, and the other in front of my niece, Chloe. Chloe’s eyes lit up with a look of practiced surprise, a performance I knew all too well. I smiled and gently patted her head. “Chloe, sweetie, I fronted the money for this phone, but it’s from your dad. It was $999. Just remind him to transfer me the money, okay?” I paused, letting the words hang in the air. “And speaking of which, with the factory having a tough year, now is probably a good time for him to square up for your living expenses for the last eight years. Just so we’re all on the same page.” The air in the living room turned to ice. My brother, Mark, froze, his mouth half-open, a sunflower seed forgotten on his tongue. His eyes, small and hard, bulged. “Ellie, what the hell are you talking about? Are you trying to shake down a kid for money?” His wife, Brenda, chimed in, her voice a shrill nail on a chalkboard. “Exactly! You make good money, what’s the big deal? Chloe looks up to you like a mother! Are you trying to stab the girl in the heart?” As if on cue, she pulled Chloe into a dramatic hug. Chloe immediately buried her face in Brenda’s shoulder, her own shoulders starting to shake with practiced sobs. Her eyes, peeking out at me, were red-rimmed and filled with a theatrical sense of betrayal. In my last life, that would have been enough. I would have crumbled, apologizing, forcing the phone into her hands, probably slipping a hundred-dollar bill inside the case to smooth things over. But now, looking at that angelic, tear-streaked face, all I felt was a cold knot of nausea in my stomach. This was the same face that had watched impassively as her father beat me to the brink of death. The same girl who then quietly closed her bedroom door and turned her music up to drown out my dying gasps. The same girl who, after my death, inherited everything I owned, wore the designer clothes I’d bought her, and lorded over my daughter, Annie, calling her “the little charity case.” Looking at these parasites, I let a serene smile touch my lips. “Mark, Brenda, you misunderstand. I’m not asking the child for money. I’m asking you.” I reached under the coffee table, pulled out a notepad and pen, and began to calmly lay out the facts. “Chloe came to live with me when she was ten. It’s been eight years. Clothes, food, school fees, private tutors, summer camps… I never let her go without, did I?” Mark and Brenda’s faces soured. “What’s your point?” Mark snapped, spitting his sunflower seed shell onto my clean floor. “We’re family. You don’t keep a running tab.” “Oh, but you have to,” I said, meeting his gaze directly. “Because I can’t afford it anymore. As you know, my little design studio isn’t doing so well this year. I’m facing bankruptcy. So going forward, you’ll have to take care of Chloe’s expenses yourselves.” “Bankruptcy?!” Brenda’s voice shot up an octave, sharp enough to shatter glass. “Don’t you dare pull that crap, Eleanor! I saw you with a new designer bag just last week! You’re broke? My ass!” I smiled and turned to my own daughter. “Annie, sweetie, would you unlock your phone for mom?” Annie obediently handed the phone over. I opened the Amazon app and showed Brenda my order history. “You’ve always had a sharp eye for these things, Brenda. Take a look. It’s a knockoff. Fifteen dollars, free shipping. When business is bad, you have to tighten your belt.” Brenda squinted at the screen, her face a comical mask of disbelief and disgust, as if she’d just swallowed a fly. Chloe looked up, her eyes wide with genuine shock this time. The brand-new phone box in her lap suddenly seemed to burn her hands. I ignored them and pressed on. “I did a rough calculation, Mark. Over the past eight years, I’ve spent well over fifty thousand dollars on Chloe. I’m not asking for all of it. Just pay me back for the tuition and food costs—let’s call it an even thirty thousand. The rest… you can consider it my graduation gift to my niece.” “Thirty thousand dollars?!” Mark shot up from the couch. “Ellie, have you lost your mind? Where are we supposed to get that kind of money?” I stared at his face, twisted with rage, and felt nothing but a cold, dead calm. “No money?” I asked with a soft, dangerous laugh. “Between you and Brenda, you bring in over six grand a month, don't you? The problem isn’t that you don’t have it. It's that you’d rather spend it on yourselves—eating out, playing poker—than on raising your own daughter.” “You—!” He was speechless, his face turning a blotchy purple. He’d been hit where it hurt. I turned my attention back to Chloe, my voice once again gentle. “Chloe, I know you’re a smart girl. Your parents work hard, so you need to be more understanding. If you like the phone, have them pay for it.” I smiled brightly. “If not, I can just return it tomorrow. It’ll save me a thousand bucks!” With that, I took Annie’s hand. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go to your room. Mommy will cut up an apple for you.” My words, a perfect blend of sweet reason and cold steel, left my brother with nowhere to go. He couldn’t argue, couldn’t fight back. Consumed by impotent rage, he snatched the phone box from Chloe’s lap and slammed it onto the floor. “Fine, Eleanor! You win! Who needs your goddamn charity phone anyway!” He pointed a trembling finger at me. “But you won’t see a dime from us! Not one cent! Let’s see what you can do about it!” He grabbed a stunned Brenda and a shell-shocked Chloe by the arms and stormed out, slamming the door so hard the pictures on my wall rattled. 2 The heavy security door shuddered in its frame. Annie flinched, gripping my arm. “Mommy,” she whispered, “are you really going to make Uncle Mark pay? Are they going to hate us even more now?” I straightened a crooked painting on the wall, then smoothed her hair. A sharp pain lanced through me. My sweet, naive daughter. In my last life, her kindness was the reason that family of vultures was able to pick her bones clean. “Annie, listen to me. It’s not about us making them hate us. They’ve been taking advantage of us for years and acting like they were entitled to it.” I looked into her wide, worried eyes. “What Mommy is doing now is taking back what belongs to us. I’m protecting us.” She nodded, not quite understanding, but trusting me. I knew this was just the beginning. Sure enough, not ten minutes later, my phone rang. It was my mother, on her usual crusade. “Eleanor! Have you lost your mind? How could you demand money from your own brother? Have you no shame? Chloe is your flesh and blood!” The familiar tirade began before I could even say hello. It was the same speech she’d given to anyone who would listen after Mark killed me. In my last life, after Mark’s “accident” with me, it was my mother who wailed and insisted it was a family dispute, that I had simply fallen. She eagerly signed a formal letter of forgiveness so he wouldn’t have to see the inside of a jail cell. Her reasoning, whispered to a relative, was: “Mark is all I have left. What would happen to me if he went to prison? Eleanor is already gone. It’s the last thing she can do for her family.” For her. The irony was acid in my throat. I gripped the phone, my knuckles turning white. “Mom, Chloe is my niece, yes. But isn’t Annie your granddaughter? I’ve been raising Annie on my own while also supporting Chloe. When have you ever worried about me?” I shot back, my voice low and steady. “You conveniently forget that I paid my own way through college by waiting tables, don’t you?” There was a brief, sputtering silence on the other end, followed by an even more furious outburst. “Your brother is struggling! It’s your duty to help him! Do you enjoy tearing this family apart? I’m telling you, Eleanor, if you dare take that money, I… I won’t have you as a daughter anymore!” “Fine,” I said. “What?” She sounded genuinely shocked. “I said, fine,” I repeated, the word tasting like freedom. “If you think your son is more important than your daughter, then from this day on, you can consider me dead. And when you get old, don’t come looking for me. Your precious son can take care of you all by himself.” I hung up, blocked her number, and tossed the phone onto the couch. The world, finally, was quiet. I dragged a dusty old box out from under my bed. Inside was a meticulously organized collection of receipts and bank transfer records for every major expense I had ever paid for Chloe over the past eight years. I’d kept them initially as a sentimental record, something to show Chloe when she was older so she would know how much her aunt loved her. Now, they were my ammunition. I laid everything out, took clear photos with my phone, and opened a spreadsheet. Room and board, estimated conservatively at $250 a month, came to $24,000 over eight years. Tuition and tutors added another $12,000. Those two categories alone were nearly forty grand. Add in clothes, electronics, vacations, and summer camps… it all added up to well over fifty thousand dollars. Asking for thirty was, frankly, a steep discount. When I finished, I compiled the spreadsheet and the photos of the receipts into a single, neat PDF. I attached it to a message and sent it to my brother. I added a single line of text beneath it: Mark, here’s the itemized bill. It’s all there. You have three days to transfer the money. After that, my next message will be from my lawyer. I could almost feel the rage radiating through the phone. A moment later, a series of angry voice messages popped up. I didn’t listen to a single one. I simply archived the chat. You can’t reason with a bully. The more you argue, the more power you give them. For a man like Mark, nothing was more terrifying than being held accountable. 3 The next two days were unnervingly quiet. Annie seemed on edge, picking at her food at dinner. I put the largest pork chop on her plate and smiled. “Eat up, sweetie. You’re too thin. From now on, every penny I earn is just for you and me.” Her face lit up. “Really, Mommy? I love you. I don’t want to share you with anyone.” My heart ached. I never realized how much my generosity towards Chloe had felt like a betrayal to my own daughter. That would never happen again. This time, I would protect my little girl at all costs. On the third day, the deadline I’d given Mark, my phone rang in the late afternoon. It was an unfamiliar number. “Is this Eleanor Gable?” “Speaking.” “Ms. Gable, this is Mr. Davison, Chloe’s guidance counselor at school.” “Mr. Davison. Is everything alright?” “Actually, no. Chloe was very distraught at school today. She was crying, saying that you don’t want her anymore, that you’re kicking her out of the house.” His tone was laced with that specific brand of professional concern that bordered on accusation. “As you know, she’s starting her senior year. Emotional distress can have a huge impact on her grades. I was hoping you could come down to the school so we could talk this through. I know I should be calling her parents, but on her enrollment forms, you’re listed as her primary guardian…” I could picture it perfectly: Chloe, spinning a tale of woe and abuse, painting me as the cruel, unhinged aunt. “Of course, Mr. Davison,” I said calmly. “I’m on my way.” I felt no panic. I simply went to my printer and made copies of every single receipt. I printed the itemized spreadsheet. And for good measure, I had an app transcribe Mark’s profanity-laced voice messages into a text document, which I also printed. If Chloe wanted to put on a show, I would be happy to provide the script. When I arrived at the school, I found Chloe in the counselor’s office, her face a mask of tragic beauty, tear tracks glistening on her cheeks. Mr. Davison sat opposite her, his expression grim. “Aunt Ellie…” Chloe whispered when she saw me, as if I were a monster emerging from the shadows. A fresh wave of tears followed. Mr. Davison frowned, adjusting his glasses. “Ms. Gable, I understand that being a single parent to two teenagers is difficult. But Chloe is an excellent, mature student. You can’t take your professional frustrations out on a child.” I didn’t argue. I just looked at Chloe, my expression serene. “Chloe, why don’t you tell Mr. Davison exactly how I took my frustrations out on you?” “You… you said you were done with me,” she sobbed. “You told my parents to come get me. A-and you demanded they pay you thirty thousand dollars or you’d sue them.” She looked up, her eyes pleading. “Aunt Ellie, I know you’re stressed out. I don’t blame you. Just… just please don’t make me leave. I’ll do anything.” It was a masterful performance. Even Mr. Davison looked moved, his gaze towards me hardening with disapproval. I smiled and placed my thick folder on his desk. “Mr. Davison, before you pass judgment, perhaps you’d like to see the facts. This is a partial record of my expenses for raising Chloe over the past eight years.” I slid the papers across the desk. “Here are the tuition payments and tutoring fees. They total just over twelve thousand dollars.” “Here are her expenses for vacations, electronics, and designer clothes. I only included purchases over two hundred dollars, and that alone is over seven thousand.” I continued, page by page, laying out the undeniable truth in black and white. “And her room and board… I charged a mere two hundred and fifty dollars a month. That’s less than the cost of groceries. Over eight years, that comes to twenty-four thousand. Add it all up, Mr. Davison. What’s the total?” Next, I pushed the transcription of Mark’s voicemails in front of him. “And this is the ‘polite conversation’ I received from my brother—Chloe’s biological father—after I informed him that due to bankruptcy, I could no longer support his daughter and would need him to contribute to her care. You’re an educator; I’m sure you can appreciate the vocabulary.” Mr. Davison stared at the mountain of evidence, his jaw slack. The color drained from his face. Finally, I turned to Chloe, who had stopped crying and was now staring at me in stunned horror. “I’m not taking my anger out on you, Chloe,” I said softly. “I am stating a fact. I have raised you for eight years. I have done my duty, and then some. Now, I am broke. I can no longer afford you. It is only right and natural that you return to your own parents.” “I… I didn’t…” Chloe’s face was ashen, her lips trembling. She couldn’t form a complete sentence. The office was utterly silent. 4 Mr. Davison’s expression shifted from shock to embarrassment, and finally, to deep regret. He cleared his throat. “Ms. Gable… I apologize. I clearly did not have the full picture. This is… well…” He glanced at the stammering Chloe, leaving the sentence unfinished. The meaning was clear. “I understand, Mr. Davison. You were advocating for your student,” I said magnanimously. My goal wasn’t to pick a fight with him; it was to shatter Chloe’s fabricated reality in front of the very person whose respect she craved. “So, what happens now with Chloe?” he asked, looking at me helplessly. “It’s very simple,” I said, gathering my documents. “I’ve already informed her parents. If they don’t transfer the money and pick her up from school today, my next call will be to Child Protective Services to report them for abandonment.” Chloe looked at me as if she’d never truly seen me before. The idea that her meek, accommodating aunt could utter the words “Child Protective Services” so calmly was clearly beyond her comprehension. I gave Mr. Davison a polite nod and walked out of the office without a backward glance. I knew Mark and Brenda would be coming. I had just walked through my own front door when the banging started. It wasn’t a knock; it was a physical assault on the door. “Eleanor! You goddamn bitch! Open the door!” It was Mark, his voice a raw, primal roar. Annie scrambled behind me, terrified. I patted her back reassuringly, then walked towards the door, but didn’t open it. I spoke through the heavy wood. “Mark, that’s my private property you’re damaging. If you have something to say, say it. If you hit my door again, I’m calling the police.” “The police? I’ll kill you first, you ungrateful snake!” The cursing intensified, punctuated by Brenda’s shrill shrieks. “Just kick the damn door in! Let’s see how tough she is then!” A cold smile touched my lips. It was just like last time. Except this time, I was prepared. After Chloe had moved out, I’d had a reinforced steel doorframe installed. It would hold—for a while. I took out my phone, angled it towards the peephole, and hit record. Then, with my other phone, I called building security and reported a violent disturbance and attempted break-in at my apartment. Only then did I speak again, my voice calm and steady. “I’ll say it one more time, Mark. I am broke. I cannot afford to raise your daughter anymore. As her parents, it’s your legal responsibility. That thirty thousand dollars is non-negotiable. If it’s not in my account by the end of the day, a process server will be visiting you at work tomorrow.” “You dare!” he bellowed. His answer was a sickening thud as his steel-toed boot connected with the door, making the entire wall vibrate. Annie screamed. I pulled her into my arms, but my eyes remained fixed on the peephole, my gaze as cold as ice. Come on, Mark. Just like last time. Show the camera exactly who you are. The impacts grew more frequent, the lock beginning to buckle. I could hear Brenda’s screeching and my mother’s pathetic, whining cries of “Oh, stop it, you two, please stop…” all blending into a grotesque symphony of dysfunction. Just as the door was about to give way, I heard the thunder of footsteps in the hallway and the authoritative shouts of security guards. “Hey! What’s going on here? Stop right now!” The noise outside ceased. For a moment, I thought it was over. But I had underestimated my brother’s capacity for rage. The arrival of security seemed to push him over the edge. “Get the hell away from me!” he roared. There was a crash of shattering glass, followed by a sound I remembered from the moment before my last death: the sickening crunch of metal and wood. He’d smashed the emergency fire case in the hallway and grabbed the axe. Through the distorted view of the peephole, I saw his eyes, bloodshot and crazed with fury. They were the last thing I saw in my previous life. My heart hammered against my ribs—not with fear, but with a grim, vindicated thrill. I dialed the three numbers I had been waiting to call. When the operator answered, I pitched my voice to be calm, but with a tremor of manufactured terror. “Hello? I need the police. My brother… he has an axe. He’s breaking down my front door.”
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