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A man is busy in the kitchen | Source: Midjourney
“Do the noodles in the package count?” I asked.
All I remember about that conversation is how my father looked at me and laughed.
Growing up, I always wondered if Charlotte didn't hold it against me. She was already eighteen when I was born. An adult with her whole life ahead of her. In the meantime, I was just the baby that came after.
I was the surprise my mother didn't even stay for. But my father? He adored me.
A smiling little girl | Source: Midjourney
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A smiling little girl | Source: Midjourney
“Dawn, you were the dawn of a new beginning, my dear,” he said. “You were the greatest surprise of my life and I welcomed you with everything I had.”
Maybe that was part of it. Maybe that's why Charlotte behaved like that.
By the time I was old enough to really get to know her, Charlotte had already grown distant from me. She didn't see me as a sister, not really. She saw me more as an inconvenience in her life. A child who comes in where I'm not wanted.
Close-up of a young woman | Source: Close-up of a young woman mid-journey
| Source: Midjourney
She never read me bedtime stories or played with me. When Dad went out for ice cream with us, she barely looked up from her phone.
But somehow I still felt important to her.
That she would be there when it counted.
But I was wrong.
A young girl is sitting on her bed | Source: Midjourney
A young girl is sitting on her bed | Source: Midjourney
And then Dad died. And everything in my life fell apart.
Two weeks after the funeral, we sat in the lawyer's office. Charlotte was well dressed, but she sat there and hardly looked sad. She looked bored. She seemed to be wasting her time. She checked her nails while we waited for Dad's will to be read.
And me?
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