I live with my unemployed 26-year-old brother to help our sick mom. He keeps saying it’s not his job to care for her. Yesterday, when I asked him to help me bring our mom upstairs, he rolled his eyes and slammed his door.

That was the last drop, so I finally decided to teach him a lesson he couldn’t ignore. I packed my things, left a note on the kitchen counter that said, “Since it’s not your job, I quit mine,” and walked out. No calls, no texts. Just silence.

By the next morning, his phone started blowing up, not from me, but from Mom’s care nurse. Turns out, she’d fallen trying to get to the bathroom alone. Nothing too serious, thank God, but enough to shake him. He called me over and over, but I didn’t answer.
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When I finally came back that night, he was sitting beside her bed, quiet and guilty, helping her eat soup. He looked like a different person—or maybe just someone who finally saw what I’d been carrying all this time.

Now he’s been helping out more, but the tension’s thick. I don’t trust that it’ll last. Part of me feels bad for what I did; another part thinks it was the only way he’d ever wake up.

Was I too harsh, or did he need that reality check?

— Emily