PREDOMINANCE

~Chapter 4~

Marylin, always depressed, continued to live with Mr and Mrs McCall. She possibly couldn't leave their house because she had nowhere else to go. It was really tough for her but she had to keep up with it.

"Marylin, Marylin." Mrs McCall called out. "Yes ma'am." Marylin responded. "I want to talk to you about something." She said to Marylin. Marylin wondered what it could be. "Okay ma'am." She replied. "It's concerning your schooling." Mrs McCall said. At this time, Mrs McCall had already resigned as the principal in Marylin's school. "What about it ma'am?" Marylin asked. "As you well know, I already resigned as the principal and things are going well financially so I've decided that you quit schooling for Mirabel because we possibly can't afford the fees for you two." Mrs McCall said. "One has to step down for the other and it's not Mirabel so you have to quit schooling. My daughter's education is more important than yours." She added. Tears rolled down Marylin's cheeks as she heard this. "What's up with the tears?" Mrs McCall asked and let out a wicked laughter. This even made Marylin more hurt that she ran up to her room. She almost cried her eyes out. It was just so humiliating.

Marylin had to quit schooling. She was now a full time house maid. The only difference was that she didn't get paid salary. She was almost always working. Mirabel did none of the house chores, not even wash her own underwears. Mirabel was now old enough to do that but she didn't. It was left to be taken care of by Marylin. Whenever Marylin tried to talk to Mirabel, she would tell at her and send her away. Marylin was humiliated regularly, it was now like a norms.

Mr. McCall was no longer coming home regularly because her had to work overtime to get more money since his wife already resigned and was now a housewife. He hardly came home twice a week.

One Friday evening, Marylin's friends from school came to see her. Unfortunately, Marylin was busy upstairs so Mrs McCall answered the door. "Good evening ma'am." They greeted. "How're y'all doing?" She asked. "We're good." One of them answered. "We came to check on Marylin. We haven't seen her in school for a while now." Another explained. "We just came to see if she's doing okay." The last friend added. "That's very thoughtful of you, but you see, Marylin can longer come to school. She had to quit schooling for my daughter to continue schooling." Mrs McCall said. "So kind of Marylin." One of them said. "Yeah, she's always ready to make sacrifices for the people she love." Another added. Mrs McCall faked a smile as they said this. "Since she's fine, we'll take our leave now. Our regards to her. Bye ma'am." The eldest said and they left.

All those while, Marylin stood upstairs, in a place where she could not be seen and witnessed all that happened. She couldn't help but give way to tears.