This Life

When my little sister was born, Mom and Dad asked if I liked her. I shouted, “Yes! But I love you most!” They laughed, hugged me, and said they loved me most too. I grinned, covered my sister’s ears, and declared, “Then I’ll just love her a little extra, so we all get equal love!” But growing up slowly stole their love from me, piece by piece, giving it all to my sister. “There’s only one spot, Annie. You’re big now—let Lucy have it.” I shook my head, lip trembling, but they just sighed and took Lucy to the amusement park without me. The art supplies promised for raising my grades went to Lucy. The puppy for the next improvement went to her too. Now, the park trip for making the top ten was also for her. [Mom and Dad aren’t my mom and dad anymore.] [They don’t love me most anymore.] [Lucy gets so much more love.] [I hate my sister.] I scribbled angrily in my prize notebook, tears blurring the page. Then, I carefully crossed out the last line and wrote: [If you wake me up tomorrow and make my favorite pancakes, I’ll forgive you for not taking me today.] I tiptoed in and taped the note to their headboard.

1 “Annie Davis!” I scrambled from the doorway back to my bed, squeezed my eyes shut, and pretended to be fast asleep. BAM! My mother threw the door open and ripped the covers off me. “Ann—” “Mom, I forgive you!” I grinned, puckering my lips for a morning kiss. “You’ve gotten completely out of hand!” Her palm cracked across my cheek. She grabbed my ear and dragged me into her bedroom. In the corner, by a cabinet, lay a pile of shattered porcelain. “Very clever,” she sneered, her face a crumpled mask of fury. “Did you really think we wouldn’t find it if you hid it?” I shook my head, terrified. “It wasn’t me, Mom…” “Still lying!” She smacked the note from the headboard against my head, then with a furious sweep of her arm, sent another vase crashing to the floor. Shards flew everywhere. “I didn’t…” Before I could finish, she had grabbed the steel ruler from the desk. I screamed as the sharp pain seared across my legs. Through a haze of tears, I saw Lucy peeking around the doorframe. “It was Lucy!” I cried out, pointing a trembling finger at the corner of her dress as she tried to slip away. The ruler came down hard on my hand. “It must have been her when she was doing her homework in here…” “How dare you blame your sister!” The ruler rose higher, each strike landing harder than the last. “Mom…” Lucy reappeared in the doorway, her hands behind her back and her eyes red-rimmed. “Please stop hitting her.” I huddled in the corner, my face a mess of tears and snot. “It was me, Mom. I knocked it over last night by accident.” Lucy stepped into the room, placing herself between me and my mother. “You can hit me instead.” My mother’s trembling rage slowly subsided. Her expression shifted to surprise as she dropped the ruler. She took two steps forward and reached out. I blinked my swollen eyes, the words “it’s okay” already on my lips, but she walked right past me and scooped Lucy into her arms. “Don’t stand there, sweetie, you’ll cut yourself on the glass.” Fresh tears began to stream down my face. “You’re so smart, Lucy,” Mom cooed, “pushing the pieces under the cabinet so no one would get hurt. But next time, just tell us, okay? Mommy and Daddy would be so sad if you got hurt.” I wanted to cover my ears, but my mother’s soft, gentle voice buzzed like a mosquito, drilling its way into my head. I had to make it stop. “Mom, I didn’t do it!” I yelled. She turned, still holding Lucy, and her gaze fell on me, light as a feather but heavy enough to crush the air from my lungs. “I didn’t do it!” I screamed again, forcing myself to stand, gasping for breath. Mom set Lucy down, smoothed her hair, and walked toward me. I held my breath, watching her come closer, step by step, bending down. I reached out, desperate for a hug, but she simply grabbed a hair tie from the cabinet behind me, walked back to Lucy, and retied her hair into a perfect, pretty ponytail. “Mom, it wasn’t me…” She didn’t look back as she led Lucy out of the room, her voice flat and distant as she tossed three words over her shoulder. “I know, dear.” That wasn’t right. That wasn’t enough. “Mom, you have to say you’re sorry!” I shouted at her retreating back. She didn’t hear me. Or she didn’t care. Her steps remained steady and quick. They were going to have breakfast. Without me. I took a deep breath and blocked their path in the dining room. “Mom, you need to apologize to me.” “Annie will…” forgive you. She gestured for Lucy to go and eat, then looked at me with an exhausted sigh. “I’m already so tired, Annie. Can’t you just be a little more understanding?” My eyes began to sting again. I opened my mouth to argue, but my father, who had been quietly working at the table, spoke up without looking. “How can you be tired from just staying home all day?” he said. “You can’t even handle two kids.” “Richard! You make it sound so easy!” Mom shot back. “Do you really think I just sit around here doing nothing?” The argument exploded from there. I clamped my mouth shut and silently covered Lucy’s ears. “Let’s go back to our room.” Lucy followed me obediently, whispering “I’m sorry” the whole way. “I’ll apologize for Mom.” “Why are you always apologizing for her?” I snapped, glaring at her. Seeing her eyes well up with tears, I sighed and my anger deflated. “I’m sorry.” I looked at the purple bruises forming on my fingers. “I’m not mad at you, Lucy. It just… it hurts a little.” She nodded, not quite understanding. Before I could explain further, we heard the crash of plates and bowls from the dining room. “Don’t be scared,” I said, handing her the breakfast roll and carton of milk I’d managed to grab. “Just eat this and it’ll be okay.” “You have some, Annie.” I nodded vaguely, taking a sip from the straw she offered while keeping my eyes glued to the doorway, listening to the escalating fight outside. Slurp. The milk was so sweet. Wait. This wasn’t milk. It was soy milk. I stared blankly at the carton in Lucy’s hand. “Annie, why are you crying?” Her voice sounded distant. “Your face is getting all red!” I shook my head, bewildered. A sharp sting flared in my throat, and my breath began to catch in my lungs. “I don’t know…” The world went dark. The shouting from outside and Lucy’s panicked cries faded into a distant echo. As I collapsed, only one thought remained. They never even read my note. Neither of them read it. “…Lucy loves soy milk, I just forgot that Annie…” “You forgot? You forgot your own daughter has a severe allergy, Katherine?” “Richard, don’t you dare act like you remembered! You don’t even know how old they are!” Their angry voices seeped back into my awareness. I pried my eyes open to a sterile white ceiling. “Annie, you’re awake!” Lucy was sitting by the hospital bed, the first to notice. The fighting stopped. Mom knelt beside me, her voice still laced with anger. “Annie Davis, if you don’t look at what you’re drinking next time, then you can just suffer the consequences yourself.” I blinked slowly and nodded. “Okay,” I mumbled. Dad glanced at me, then at his watch, and turned to leave. “I have to get back to work.” “It’s always work with you…” Mom started yelling at his back, but he was already gone. I looked timidly back at my mother. She was stroking Lucy’s hair while calling for a nurse. “Mom—” My voice was a useless whisper. I watched them both disappear through the door. The clock on the wall pointed to two. It was Saturday. Time for Lucy’s art class. They just have important things to do, I told myself. I’ll have important things to do when I’m older, too. That’s how adults are. I’m a big girl now. Don’t cry anymore, Annie. I turned my head so the nurse wouldn’t see my tears and squeezed my eyes shut, pretending to fall back asleep. It would be better when I woke up. It would be better when I got home.

2 I was discharged from the hospital on Monday, just in time for mid-terms. Mom and Dad agreed that being sick wasn’t an excuse to miss a test, so I walked into the exam hall with my head feeling completely empty. That night at the dinner table, I stayed silent, shoveling plain rice into my mouth. “Eat your vegetables!” Mom snapped, slamming her hand on the table. I flinched, my hand trembling as I picked up a single green bean. “If you improve your score this time, we’ll sign you up for that writing workshop.” The writing workshop! The one I wanted more than anything! My head shot up, then slowly sank again. “Mom, what if I do really badly this time?” “Then you can stop calling me your mother,” she replied coldly, placing a piece of chicken on Lucy’s plate. “But I was sick, next time I’ll—” “That’s not an excuse,” Dad said, not even looking up from his paper. I didn’t dare say another word, just silently prayed that my teacher would be generous with her grading. Please, Mrs. Davison, please. But Mrs. Davison clearly hadn’t heard my prayers. I came in third from the bottom. “Annie Davis, you’ve really outdone yourself,” Mom said, her long fingernail jabbing at my forehead. She turned to Lucy, her voice instantly softening. “How about we take you to the aquarium this time, sweetie?” “I want to go too,” I whispered, mustering all my courage to echo the way Lucy used to ask for things. Mom’s hand struck my back, hard. “With grades like that, you have the nerve to ask for anything?” “But Mom, my art supplies, the puppy, the amusement park… they all went to Lucy…” “I knew it! I knew you were keeping score!” she shrieked, grabbing the steel ruler again. “Lucy gets first place every single time! Doesn’t she deserve those things?” “And besides,” she continued, her voice rising, “don’t you have art supplies now? Don’t we have a dog in this house? Don’t you have pictures from the amusement park?” I nodded, sobbing uncontrollably. But Mom, the art supplies I have are Lucy’s old ones. The dog was supposed to be named Buddy, not her Lucky. And the pictures from the amusement park are from when I was a tiny little girl. I can’t even remember what it feels like to be there anymore. “Mom, stop hitting her!” Lucy ran out of her room and stood in front of me, holding out her own brand-new set of colored pencils. “Here, Annie! You can have them all back!” “I don’t want them!” I shoved her hands away, and the pencils scattered across the floor. “How dare you yell at your sister! You ungrateful little brat!” Mom’s strikes became harder, more frantic. “That’s enough,” Dad finally said, stopping her arm before it could fall again. “Lucy’s right here.” Glancing at her weeping younger daughter, Mom threw the ruler back on the table and knelt to hug Lucy. Dad rolled up his sleeves and walked slowly toward me. I knew what was coming. “Dad, I’m sorry,” I pleaded, shaking my head frantically. “I won’t yell at Lucy again. I’ll get into the top ten next time, no, the top five! Please, I don’t want to go to…” “Annie.” He was already heading for the stairs. “You’re a good girl, right?” No! No! I wanted to scream, but Dad’s belt hurt even more than Mom’s ruler. All I could do was nod. I left Lucy’s muffled sobs and Mom’s comforting murmurs behind me and slowly followed my father upstairs. He led me to the room at the end of the hall. He handed me my test paper, and I sat down quietly in the chair bolted to the center of the floor. The light faded to black. The last thing I saw was the big red 54 circled on my test.

3 My father didn’t believe in corporal punishment, he said, even though he hit me harder than anyone. After the first time I failed a test, he’d broken two belts on me and then hired a designer to create my “reflection room.” It had no windows. The stark white walls were plastered with motivational posters and every single one of my report cards. [FAILURE NOW IS FAILURE FOREVER.] [IF YOU’RE NOT FIRST, YOU’RE LAST.] [SUCCESS IS THE ONLY OPTION.] It was pitch black, but I didn’t need to see. I had memorized the location of every single piece of paper. “You need to be sharper!” “How could you get such a simple question wrong?!” “Why are you so stupid?” “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” “What’s the big deal about letting her have it?” A static hiss filled my ears as my parents’ voices argued inside my head. “Stop it, stop it,” I whimpered, trying to bat away the words flashing in the darkness, but the restraints on the chair held me fast. “We love our Annie so much!” “We just want our little girl to be safe and happy.” “Annie is the best little girl in the whole wide world!” “I’m not, I’m not…” I sobbed, shaking my head violently. My body convulsed, a wave of nausea rising in my throat. I screamed until my voice was raw, and then silence fell. My brain felt like a rusted gear, straining to turn but going nowhere. I just stared into the void. Whoosh. Whose breath was that? Whoosh. Was it mine? I closed my eyes. Or did I? I couldn’t tell. It was so quiet. So dark. “Mommy, Daddy, I won’t do it again.” “I’ll be nice to Lucy.” “I’ll study harder.” “I’ll be just like her. I’ll get first place every time.” My thoughts grew fuzzy. I mumbled one last thing. “Please don’t hate me anymore.” “Can you just love me a little bit again?” “I’m a little scared.”

4 [Good news: Mom and Dad locked the reflection room.] [Bad news: They said they’re done with me.] [It’s all my fault. I’m getting dumber and dumber. I can’t remember anything. I’ve failed three tests in a row.] [If I improve by twenty spots next time, will they forgive me?] I turned to a new page and continued to write, carefully, stroke by stroke. [If Mom or Dad calls me ‘Annie’ just one more time, I’ll forgive you for saying you’re done with me.] I tore the page out neatly and tucked it under my pillow. There. Now I could love my mom, my dad, and my sister properly again. I walked out of my room and greeted my parents, who were sitting on the couch. No one answered. I knelt down and reached a hand under the sofa. “Good morning, Buddy!” “His name is Lucky,” Mom said without looking at me. My fingers curled. I corrected myself brightly. “Good morning, Lucky!” The puppy wagged his tail, and I had just started to pet his head when Mom stood up. “I’m taking Lucky out to pick up your sister.” I slowly pulled my hand back and nodded, watching them leave. “Dad, can I sit here and read with you?” He remained silent, so I tentatively sat on the other end of the couch. A small smile touched my lips, but then he stood up, rolled his magazine into a tube, and walked away. I looked around the empty living room, feeling adrift. It was like this house didn’t need me anymore. I blinked, my eyes feeling dry and sore, like I was a lemon turning sour. “Okay. I’ll get Buddy’s—Lucky’s—dinner ready.” I copied my mother, getting the bag of dog food from the cabinet. I read the label three times to make sure it was the right one before pouring it into his bowl. “What are you doing?” Mom’s cold voice came from behind me. Lucky was already gobbling up the food. “I’m helping, Mom.” “I don’t need your help.” She took Lucy’s backpack from her and disappeared around the corner. “Annie, Buddy really likes you!” Lucy chirped. “His name is Lucky,” I corrected, trying to push down the swelling feeling in my chest. Lucy opened her mouth to say something else but gasped instead. “Buddy, he’s—” The warm, furry body under my hand went stiff. Lucky started to vomit, then convulsed twice and lay still. “Lucky?” I whispered, my hand frozen on his back. “Annie! What did you do?!” Mom shoved me aside and frantically dialed the vet’s number. I looked from my stoic father to my frantic mother to my crying sister, and finally, down at Lucky’s small, still body. Mom drove Lucky to the animal hospital. When she came back, her face was grim. “He’s gone,” she said, her voice flat. Then she slapped me, hard. “The vet said he ingested some kind of poison.” Her eyes were filled with a hatred I had never seen before. “Annie, I thought you were just bad at school! I never thought you were a bad person!” “If you didn’t want him around, you should have just killed yourself! What did he ever do to you? Why did you have to kill him?!” “I didn’t… I checked the bag, it was the same one he always eats…” Mom pulled a wailing Lucy into her arms, her voice dripping with disgust as she delivered the final blow. “I regret the day you were born.” A roar filled my ears. I stumbled backward and fell to the floor, staring up at my father, who looked down on me with cold disappointment. “Annie, you are a profound disappointment.” “I don’t understand how I could have a daughter like you.” “How could I have ever thought you had potential?” “Someone like you… living is just a waste of resources.” He paused, his voice dropping to a low, chilling whisper. “Listen to your mother. Maybe you’d be better off dead.” My throat was dry. I couldn’t think. I scrambled back to my room in a daze. “I regret the day you were born—” “Living is just a waste—” “We love our Annie so much!” “How could I have a daughter like you—” “Annie is the best little girl in the world!” “You should have just killed yourself—” “Better off dead—” “Just die!” “JUST DIE!” “JUST DIE!!!” “Alright,” I whispered to the empty room. “Mom, Dad… I’ll grant your wish.”