A few more months have past and Mishna is still swimming and doing very well at it. Problem is, things at home aren’t going very well. Her step mom Yvonne feels stressed because she is the sole provider of the family. Since this is towards the end of the novel, things are getting more serious although there are a few comical parts. This isn’t one of them.
“Three days later, I was woken up in the middle of the night. Yvonne stood over my bed leering angrily until the searing heat of her rage woke me… ‘Where is my shirt?’ Yvonne demanded. I stared at her blankly… ‘What?’ I asked. ‘My white shirt!’ Yvonne said. ‘Don’t act like you don’t know.’ ‘Mishna,’ Dad said. ‘Just tell her where the shirt is and we can all go to bed…’ ‘It’s not just the shirt!’ Yvonne said. ‘It’s your entitlement!’ You think you can just walk around here and get into anything you want. You have no respect for other people’s property…’ It was too much all coming at once. I started to cry again… I had no idea what this shirt was. I had never worn her shirt, but none of that made a difference. I was supposed to be wrong. ‘I’m sorry about your shirt,’ I cried. ‘You’re right, I stole it. I don’t know why I did it…’ ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I care. I love you, Yvonne! I really love you so much.’ ‘You make it very hard for me to love you back,’ she said, the tears starting to roll down her face… ‘I’m sorry, Yvonne,’ I said, ‘I’m really, really sorry.’ I was apologizing for my father.”
Mishna is really a good person, she wants the best for the people around her and she wants to please everyone. This is one of the more tender moments in the book. This past paragraph was the last straw, she didn’t want to be yelled at, she didn’t want to be blamed for everything, she just wanted to be loved. On the next page, she ends up packing her things and moving into her mom’s apartment which makes this barrier between her and her father. A large chunk of the rest of the book is about her father trying to come to terms with her and them being father and daughter again.
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