Then my mother picked up the phone.
“What do you mean by party?”
“They passed away this morning. The funeral will be held on Friday. Please, I need your help.”
My father has gone back to work.
“Friday?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He exhaled slowly. “Claire, Friday is your sister’s birthday dinner. The reservation has been made for weeks.”
I thought that grief had already completely drained me of my essence.
I was wrong.
“Dad,” I said. “My husband and children are dead.”
“I understand,” he replied in the same tone he used when talking about the weather. “But it’s your sister’s birthday today. We can’t come.”
The call ended before I had a chance to beg.
I remained in the chapel, my phone in my hand, my fingers still covered in ashes, the final silence of the interrupted call echoing in my ears.
At that moment, I understood something that I would spend the next six months trying to undo: I had never been the girl who really mattered in that family.
I had always been the other one.
The reliable one.
The girl whose needs could always be minimized until it became easier to ignore them.
Until then, I simply had never needed them enough to discover where their concern ended.
At the funeral, I stood between three coffins while Ethan’s parents supported me so that I could stand.
His mother, Margaret, was sobbing so violently that her whole body was trembling. His father held my shoulder tightly throughout the ceremony, as if he feared I would dissolve into the ground if he let go.
My side of the church was almost empty.
My parents weren’t there.
