My daughter-in-law was an environmentalist with two sets of rules.

She wasted everything in sight, then turned around and lectured me for running the AC at seventy-seven degrees.

"Turning on the AC just moves the heat from inside the house to outside. It does nothing but wreck the environment."

"You ruin the home of every generation that comes after you, just so you can be cool for one afternoon. You don't deserve to call yourself a person."

I was furious.

But my son tugged at my arm, his face full of pleading, begging me to just let it go.

"The AC isn't only bad for the planet. It'll make you sick, too. We're saying this for your own good."

I swallowed my anger and went back to my room, and she called that my silent protest.

To teach me my mistake.

And to remind me who ran this house.

At the hottest point of the day, she used her phone to shut off the AC and lock the electronic door from the outside.

The heat gave me a stroke, and I stopped breathing before the ambulance ever arrived.

Only after I was dead did my daughter-in-law put on her little act, apologizing, saying she never meant for it to happen.

My son knew the truth, and he still comforted her, telling her not to blame herself.

"If she weren't so dependent on the AC, how could she drop dead the second it went off?"

"It's bad enough she died. Now she's dragged down the value of our house on top of it. So really, the one at fault is her."

I got a second chance.

And this time I didn't argue with my daughter-in-law, because I decided I wanted to be exactly like her, a radical two-faced eco-warrior...

One:

"Mom, it's not that I'm cheap about the electric bill. That's not why I won't let you run the AC."

"Don't believe me? Go look at the news from overseas. They don't have AC at all, because those people love the earth, they love the planet."

"You're just an old woman. You really think you're wiser than the scholars over there?"

...

Belinda Walker went on and on, spit flying.

She'd been exactly like this in my last life, preaching about the environment when all she really couldn't stand was me home alone with the AC on, napping through the afternoon.

Back then I held my tongue, for my son Alden Fox's sake.

After all, I understood better than anyone that Belinda's so-called environmental standards applied to one person only. Me.

She used disposable everything, left the water running while she washed her hands and face and brushed her teeth, and kept the AC at sixty degrees whether she was at the office or at home...

So I chose to do as I pleased. When I wanted the AC on, I turned it on.

But Belinda watched the security feed from work, spotted me "sneaking the AC on" in an instant, and shut off both the AC and the electronic lock by remote. I couldn't turn the AC back on, and I couldn't get out of the house.

Angry, panicked, and burning up, I went into heatstroke fast. My whole body stopped moving, and I couldn't even reach my phone to call for help.

I was still foolish enough to think the AC and the door had both broken at the same time, so I dragged myself toward the camera to beg for help. And the next second, I heard Belinda laughing through it.

"There's no malfunction. I shut it all off on purpose."

"The heat your AC pumps out every day is exactly what scorches Mother Earth. Today I'm letting you feel what Mother Earth feels."

I was half dead with rage.

But to stay alive, I swore to her I'd go green from now on, that I'd never run the AC again.

Belinda didn't believe a word of it. She just said, if I'd known it would come to this, why hadn't I acted differently from the start?

By the time Alden finally found me unconscious and called an ambulance, it was already too late. And my dear son, even after I died, didn't blame Belinda at all. He was only angry that I'd dragged down the value of the house...

Thinking of all this.

I forced my anger down, picked up the remote beside me, and switched off the AC right in front of them.

Then I let a mocking smile spread across my face.

"Fine."

"I won't run the AC anymore. I'll learn from Belinda and be an eco-warrior too."

2:

Belinda and Alden traded a look, both of them caught off guard.

They clearly hadn't expected it. Stubborn as I always was, forever contradicting them, and here I was suddenly so agreeable.

She rolled her eyes soon enough.

"You're not planning to say one thing to our faces and do another behind our backs, are you?"

"The second we're home, you switch off the AC to cook us alive, and the moment we leave, you crank it right back up and live it up. That's the plan, isn't it?"

"Going green has to come from the heart, not just the mouth!"

Alden decided I was putting on an act too.

"Mom, I don't mean to lecture you, but this two-faced streak of yours really needs to change."

"Us not letting you run the AC is for your own good, when you get down to it. You're not young anymore. If you catch some AC bug, you're the one who suffers."

I smiled to myself.

I couldn't really blame them for thinking that way. They knew I couldn't stand the heat. Even in the dead of winter I slept under a single thin blanket, and in summer I couldn't live without the AC. I'd even gone and bought a new unit installed just for that.

But what would they know.

When your heart goes cold, the body has a hard time warming up too.

Seeing them like this, though, I understood something. In my last life, my miserable death had nothing to do with anything I did.

No matter what I did, they'd always find some new angle to pick at.

But this rebirth wasn't about fighting with them. It was about showing you all what real going green looks like, about letting you lift the stone only to drop it on your own feet.

So I calmed down and put on a gentle smile.

"I know I've had a bad temper. I often didn't listen to you, especially when it came to being eco-friendly."

"But a person can grow in a single instant. I'm a mother myself, and of course I want my children and grandchildren to have a good life."

"So I swear it right here. From now on, I'll go green, I promise."

3:

Belinda and Alden let out a scoff, ready to argue back.

But I didn't give them the chance to open their mouths. I ran around the apartment, gathered up every remote in the place, packed them together, and handed them to Belinda.

"Take all the remotes with you today. I won't be needing them anyway."

Belinda and Alden left, baffled.

The moment they were gone, I hurried back to the bedroom, picked up my phone, and called the scrap dealer.

"Hi, I've got some appliances here that need hauling off."

After I hung up, I went back to the living room and glanced at the security camera mounted on the wall.

I knew.

Belinda was surely watching my every move through that camera right now.

That was exactly what she'd done in my last life. And just before she left, she'd made a point of glancing at the camera, as if to tell me she'd be watching to see whether I turned the AC on.

But I bore the sweat soaking through me and held out without turning it on. Instead I reached up, gave the camera a pat, and yanked it loose.

Then I picked up my phone and sent Belinda a message.

[Belinda, this camera wastes electricity. It's not eco-friendly, so I unplugged it.]

[Don't worry, I didn't unplug it so I could run the AC. You've got the AC app on your phone anyway. Check it if you don't believe me.]

Her status bar showed she was typing.

A good while passed.

Finally, playing it like she was terribly busy, she replied with a single "1."

Not long after that message came through, the scrap dealer showed up too, a few workers in tow.

"Ma'am, what kind of scrap are you selling that needs this many hands?"

I pointed around the apartment.

"Everything that runs on electricity. I'm selling all of it."

"Good or bad, all of it at scrap price. My only condition is that you have to strip it all out before noon. Can you do that?"

Four:

After a long day at work.

Belinda and Alden came home.

The moment they walked in, they saw me standing by the door without a single drop of sweat on me, not looking at all like someone who'd baked in the heat all day. Their brows knit together, and they rushed straight to the electric meter box.

They seemed to want the meter to prove I'd been wasting power at home, being wasteful, un-eco-friendly, so they could stand on the moral high ground and point their fingers at me.

But then they looked.

Both of them froze, because the reading was exactly the same as the photo they'd taken of it when they left that morning.

"How is this even possible? Why hasn't the meter moved a single kilowatt-hour? Did you break it?"

"You didn't run the AC at home, fine, that's a fact. But there's no way you didn't at least turn on a fan. You don't look like someone who sweated through a whole day."

"So now you're not just being wasteful, you've actually stooped to stealing electricity, which is against the law!"

They weren't wrong. I really hadn't baked in the heat all day.

I'm not an idiot, after all.

This is the hottest stretch of the year. The forecast said a hundred and two, and the "feels like" on my phone was pushing a hundred and fifteen. If I'd sat home without the AC at high noon, I'd have been steamed alive.

So I'd actually spent the whole day in an air-conditioned hotel room and timed my return for right when they got off work.

Not that I'd ever tell them that.

I just said, smug all over my face,

"I didn't break the meter."

"The reason the house didn't use a single kilowatt-hour is that I sold off every appliance we own. I even threw out the phone chargers."

"Because I decided Belinda was right. We have to go green. The AC heats up the environment, but using all this electricity like we do also releases huge amounts of carbon, causes global warming, air pollution, and resource depletion."

"And besides, didn't you say it yourselves? Back before we had electricity, everyone got along just fine. So I just took the idea and ran with it."

Five:

Belinda and Alden shot each other a look, faces full of disbelief, and bolted for the living room.

But it didn't take long for them to believe it.

Where the freestanding AC unit used to sit in the living room, there was now a potted plant.

The TV that used to hang on the wall was gone, replaced by Belinda and Alden's wedding photo.

The wall-mounted AC units in all three bedrooms and the study were gone too, leaving only big holes. Even the fridge, the washing machine, and the smart toilet were gone...

The two of them stood there stunned for a while before it registered, and then they pointed at me and let loose.

"Have you lost your mind?"

"We just told you not to run the AC. What's the meaning of selling off all these appliances? Are you doing this on purpose to make us look like fools?"

"Get every last thing back here right now!"

I spread my hands.

"They've all been sold for scrap. How am I supposed to get them back?"

"How could I possibly be making you look like fools? You two love the environment. No effort is too small when it comes to going green. What if the planet was hanging on just this one person, just this one kilowatt-hour?"

"Don't worry. A calm heart keeps you cool."

"I made a point of buying a few all-natural palm-leaf fans, and three big winter melons too. If we hold the fans and hug the melons, we definitely won't get too hot."

"And with the TV and everything else gone, our family can chat more, grow closer. It's the best of both worlds!"

I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

Belinda and Alden, on the other hand, were livid.

Sweat poured down their faces like water, and Belinda's makeup ran right off.

"Grace Dickerson! You're picking a fight on purpose, aren't you?"

"I wouldn't let you run the AC, so you're bitter, and now you're tormenting us like this on purpose, right?"

But no matter what Belinda said.

I kept my innocent face.

I even pulled out my phone and showed Belinda the eco-friendly tips an AI app had given me, proof that I truly love the environment and wasn't doing this to torment anyone.