When I was a child, my parents and sister left me out.
They went no contact once I moved out when I was 19.
They would not even call me on my birthday. My mom recently called me.
Motherly, sickening-sweet voice, as though nothing had ever happened, and she tells us, Honey, your sister is to be married. We would be glad to see you.
I sat there frozen. Only now, after all this time of not talking, of treating me like a secret they wished they had never had, did they want me to smile in family photos?
I was not even sure when she last mentioned my name.
There was still, however, still in me… the child who sat at family dinners all by himself with his parents muttering things just right in front of me that I coudn t make out clearly; that part of me wanted to answer yes. Not that I forgave them, but I had to have the answers.
So I said I would come.
The wedding was in a town I never had heard of–one of those lakeside resorts, I guess–and everybody there was wearing linen and drinking things with mint in them. I walked in and I knew I was being stared at. My mother gave me a huge hug as though we had been separated just a week ago. My father nodded briskly. My sister, Astrid, just glanced at me.
It was all artifice. However, I grinned. I behaved properly. I waited.
During the rehearsal dinner I sat at one of the last tables I was alone. I heard one of Astrid friends say, Who is she? and someone whispered, That is her other sister.
Other. As though I was a technicality.
I took a walk down by the water the next morning to get something out of my head. This is when he discovered me-Carver, fiance to Astrid.
I am glad you came, he said, softly. Neither does Astrid ever speak of you.
Perfectly expected,” I said, bitterly, laughing.
According to her, you emigrated at a young age. Troubled, that you were.”
I stared at him. “Troubled? Why did she say so?”
He was embarrassed. No… only that it was difficult to grow up with you.
A picture in me broke. I had been alone, a pariah, an outcast, all my childhood, and now they were transforming it all!
Did she ever mention to you the two weeks I spent up at Grandma Marla because of them forgetting to pick me up at school? I questioned, endeavouring to speak steadily.
He blinked. “No…”
Or when they had a Christmas without me when I was in the room with a flu?
He slowly shook his head.
I do not know what prompted me to say it, but I continued, to ask her about the letter she kept. The one of our aunt in Norway. I discovered it in her desk when I was sixteen.”
This night blew everything up.
After dinner, Carver drew Astrid to one side. I did not overhear the conversation but I did see her face–surprise, then anger. Up to me in the lobby of the hotel, then, she thunder-clouded.
Why say that to him, she hissed.
It is true, I said, because it is the truth. You have made me sound like a maniac as well, and I spent years believing myself a maniac. But I was not. I had just… been forgotten.”
Her lips pared, then shut. She did not contradict.
You were a tax on my love before I was born, said she, smilelessly at last. Mom and Dad were not able to deal with both.
And so they selected you.
She made no reply.
That night Carver visited me. He regretted– believing everything. He informed me that he argued with my parents, and they also acknowledged they had excluded me and made decisions they were possessed by. They did not want to discuss it, however.
Well I know I thanked him, but I was not after an apology. I simply wanted the truth.
I stayed at home the following day and did not attend the wedding.
I paid off (I forgot to pay off before) the hotel, and with a word of farewell to Carver, who was quite awake now, left him a note: Good luck. You are marrying into a family who conceals. Only do not get hoarse as I did.”
Three months past I received a letter.
From Carver.
He canceled the marriage.
Said the worse he questioned, the worse falsehoods unfolded. He was becoming aware Astrid had lied in other things–about me. He thanked me that I provided him the courage to dig deeper.
He replied, You freed me out of something of which I was scarcely aware that I was a prisoner.
It did not mend the past.
My parents are yet to call. Astrid wrote me a chilly two-line email: Keep out of my life.
Something had changed though. I had a different feeling like I was never broken.
Truth has a way of making things right, even when it costs you all that you deemed to be important.
There are times that the family that you were born to is not your family.
It is the greatest favor sometimes to be left out.
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