They Framed My Daughter, So I Burned Them Down

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On the first day of my daughter's summer break, I handed her a hundred dollars and sent her off to the market to buy groceries.

She headed out into ninety-eight-degree heat and spotted an old woman, seventy or eighty years old, crouched at the roadside selling shrimp.

The water in the tub had gone warm in the sun, the old woman's face was slick with sweat, and the backs of her hands were wrinkled like dried bark.

My daughter had a soft heart. She handed over the whole hundred dollars, the money meant for groceries.

"Grandma, I'll take all the shrimp. Go home early, okay?"

But she'd barely carried the shrimp to the entrance of our complex when the old woman chased her down and grabbed her by the arm.

"Everybody look! This college girl paid me, an old lady, with counterfeit money!"

Dead shrimp spilled all over the ground, and a ring of phone cameras closed in.

Once the video went online, my daughter became the "Counterfeit Girl" the whole city was talking about.

The university revoked her graduate-school recommendation.

She couldn't stand the screens full of "highly educated con artist," and she slit her wrists in her rented apartment.

My husband went to confront the old woman and was shoved down the steps by her son. After a night in the ER, he never woke up again.

And that old woman, holding the donation money, dabbed at her tears in front of the cameras.

"I don't want the money. I just wanted to teach these young people a lesson."

When I opened my eyes again, my daughter was standing at the market entrance, pointing at that tub of shrimp half-dead in the sun, turning back to look at me with red-rimmed eyes.

"Mom, this grandma's so pitiful. Should I just buy them all?"

I pulled the hundred-dollar bill back out of her hand.

"Sweetheart, Mom's suddenly allergic to shrimp today. Let's eat it tomorrow."

...

Lucretia Henson froze.

"Mom, since when are you allergic to shrimp?"

"Since just now."

I tucked the money back into my wallet and looked up at the old woman at the stall.

Her face was flushed red from the sun, sweat sliding down through the wrinkles. She looked pitiful, truly pitiful.

But I would never forget that in my last life, it was this very face that pushed my daughter into the headlines and into her grave.

Lucretia was still looking at that tub of shrimp.

"Mom, she's so old..."

I cut her off.

"So old, and where are her children?"

The old woman's fan stopped mid-wave, and the tears came at once.

"Little girl, your mother's words really cut deep."

"If an old lady like me had anyone to look after me, would I be out selling shrimp in this heat?"

The woman selling tofu beside her spoke up right away.

"Life's hard for the elderly. If you're not buying, don't say things like that."

A man on an electric scooter stopped too.

"Exactly. Dressed all nice and not a shred of sympathy in her."

Lucretia's face went red in an instant.

In my last life, this was exactly how she'd been cornered. To prove she wasn't cold-hearted, she'd handed over that hundred.

I turned to the tofu seller.

"You feel sorry for her? Then you buy them."

The woman's expression shifted.

"My family doesn't eat shrimp."

I turned to the man on the scooter.

He waved his hands quickly.

"I've got gout. Can't eat seafood."

I smiled.

"What a coincidence. Everyone's heart bleeds with their mouth, but the moment it's time to pay up, they've all got some ailment."

For a moment the crowd went quiet.

Lucretia tugged at my sleeve.

"Mom, someone's filming."

I took her hand.

"Lucy, you didn't do anything wrong. No reason to be afraid of a camera."

The old woman suddenly stood up and seized Lucretia by the arm.

"You're not leaving!"

Lucretia flinched.

"Grandma, what are you doing?"

"Weren't you just about to buy my shrimp?"

"I asked about them, but I didn't buy any."

"You touched them!"

The old woman shrieked at the top of her lungs.

"You picked through them forever, then didn't want them, and now the shrimp are all dead from your messing around!"

Lucretia was so upset the tears came.

"I didn't. My hands are dry, look."

The old woman lifted the shrimp tub and dumped it out at Lucretia's feet.

Dead shrimp and fishy water spread across the ground.

She sank down with it and wailed like the sky was falling.

"Everybody look! A college girl bullying an old woman selling shrimp!"

The crowd surged in, rows of phone cameras rising up.

The old woman pulled a crumpled hundred-dollar bill from her pocket and held it over her head.

"She just tried to cheat me with fake money! I said the bill was wrong, and the two of them tried to run!"

There was a black smudge on the corner of that counterfeit bill.

I'll remember it to my dying day. It was the first stone that crushed Lucretia in my last life.

I took out my phone, dialed straight through, and pressed speaker.

"Hello, east gate of the Bayport Farmers Market. Someone is using counterfeit money to frame my daughter, extorting her and slandering her in public."

"Please send officers immediately."

The old woman's crying cut off.

Just then a man in a black tank top shoved his way through. "Ma!"

He steadied the old woman and swung around, roaring.

"Who's bullying my mother?"

The moment she saw him, the old woman wept harder.

"Pat, your mother can't go on living."

"This college girl cheated me with fake money, and her mom's calling me a swindler on top of it."

Patrick Swanson pulled out his phone and aimed it at Lucretia's face.

"Come on, everybody, take a look. A name-brand college girl cheating a seventy-eight-year-old woman with counterfeit money."

I raised my hand and blocked the lens.

"Don't film my daughter."

Patrick sneered.

"Afraid of looking bad? Then don't do dirty things."

He shoved the phone in closer.

"Which school?"

Lucretia's whole body went rigid.

School. The recommendation. Her reputation.

Every one of those words was a soft spot.

I pushed her behind me.

"Lucy, remember this. Don't apologize. Don't bow your head."

"And don't ever admit fault just to shut someone up."

Sirens rose from the corner of the street.

The old woman dropped straight back down to the ground, clutching her chest, sobbing like she might stop breathing any second.

I looked at this family.

This life, I've built the stage for you.

You'd better sing loud.