"Half and Half" by Amy Tan

Half and Half’ was based a family crisis which has caused the mother in the family to lose faith in her religion. At first she was a woman who always read the bible. She treasured the bible more than she treasured the family. One day the family decided to go to the ocean to enjoy the weather. The mother was very carefully not to go on the days that were marked as jinks. She only went on the days in which bad things weren’t suppose to happen. This day they got to the ocean and everything was going good. The mother had instructed the older daughter to watch her younger brother. The younger brother was too close to the shore and next thing she knew he feel into the water. She wasn’t able to do anything because she was so scared. Her mother turns around to check on her brother and asked her where the brother was. She is only able to point and they go running to rescue him. Unfortunately they are not able to save his life. Bings dies and the mother makes her daughter go back out to the river to rescue her brother. Her mother felt that god would bring their brother to the shore so he could have a proper burial. When she cries out to god and god doesn’t listen she decides from that point on that she is not putting her trust in god anymore. She throws her bible on the shelf and never picks it up again.
At the beginning of the story the daughter that was watching her brother and he died under her care decides to tell her mom that her and Ted are getting a divorce. Their marriage was good until they started suffering from financial problems. Ted was doctor and he ended up making a stupid decision. He decided to help a patient with spiny veins of her face by sucking the red out of the vein. Instead this left the patient paralyzed a droopy smile. Once he lost his confidence in his decision making skill he started making me make decision. I had never been in charge to make decision and he would get angry at me. This is why my marriage fell apart.