1: 1

At the end of the month, once my salary landed, the first thing I did was go to the bank, withdraw the cash, and head home.

I was going to hand it over to my parents, the way I always did.

But the door code had been changed, and the people living inside weren't my family anymore.

The elderly neighbor heard the noise and came out. "Joy Shepherd, sweetheart, your mom and dad and your sister moved out two weeks ago."

"Said they'd all gone to a new house, that the mortgage was finally paid off, four thousand a month — and nobody even told you?"

I froze, and the tears came at once.

Three years of work, and every single month I transferred four thousand to my parents, right on time.

They said they were saving it for me, that they'd give it back one day.

Turns out it all went straight into paying off the mortgage.

And now, just because last month I hadn't managed to transfer it in time,

they'd moved out without a single word, to punish me.

"Do you want me to ask them for you?"

The old woman held onto my arm, her face full of pity.

I just wiped my eyes, calm now.

"There's no need."

Forty-eight thousand and three dollars couldn't buy me a family that loved me.

From here on, I'd just be good to myself.

...

She looked at me, and the ache in her eyes deepened.

"The Shepherds, honestly, it's a sin. They favored that younger one from the day she was born."

The other neighbors heard the commotion and drifted out to watch.

"It's true. The year Joy came first in the whole city on her SATs, you didn't see them throw any party for her."

"The younger one barely scraped past the cutoff for a four-year college, and they wanted to hang banners all over the neighborhood."

Every word landed like a blade, peeling back the old scars.

For as long as I can remember, my parents loved my sister more.

They'd slip her twice the allowance they gave me,

they'd make a point of taking her traveling so she could see the world,

they even set up a whole social media account, and every month they wrote my sister a letter.

Recording how she was growing up.

Later the account took off, and plenty of my classmates came across it.

They'd chatter at me about how much they envied me.

"Your parents are so wonderful. The letters are so tender, so warm, it takes a home like that to raise a child who's really loved!"

"Right? Watching your sister through their lens, I could almost fall for her myself."

The more they envied me,

the worse I felt inside.

I stayed quiet and watched them.

Eventually someone noticed something was off.

"Joy, how come your parents only ever post your sister, and never you?"

"Yeah, the followers all think they've only got one daughter. Why don't you get in front of the camera?"

Another classmate gave them a nudge.

"Don't say things like that. Joy's quiet. Maybe she just doesn't want her parents recording her."

I opened my mouth to explain.

And found I couldn't get out a single word.

Who doesn't want to be recorded by their own mom and dad, treated like something precious?

But for more than ten years, I'd been invisible in that house.

So when they took their photos and wrote their letters,

by some unspoken agreement, they never asked me. They just skipped me.

No one ever asked whether I wanted it.

No one cared how I felt.

After I graduated, I found myself a decent job, on my own.

Eight thousand a month, plus commission when my numbers were good.

When my parents heard, the cold look on their faces finally loosened.

That was the first time in my life I heard,

"Our Joy, not bad at all." A word of praise.

Even next to the way they gushed over my sister, endless praise for her,

that simple "not bad" was clearly grudging and perfunctory.

And still it stayed sweet in my chest for the longest time.

Only now do I understand.

That bit of praise they squeezed out

was only ever to keep me handing over four thousand dollars, month after month, for three years.

Now, coming back to myself,

I bowed deeply to the neighbors.

"Take care of yourselves. I won't be coming back here again."

Then I turned and walked away.

My manager had told me last month there was a promotion opening, and he'd put my name forward.

The only catch was a three-year posting out to the western branch, in the Denver region.

At the time I thought of my parents, and turned it down against my own wishes.

Now, I was going to take that chance back.

The Denver branch was two thousand miles from Harrington.

Far enough to wear away every last bit of love and hate I had left here.

2: 2

Back at the office, I walked straight into my supervisor's room.

I picked up the pen and filled out the transfer consent form without hesitation.

He nodded slowly.

"Good that you've come around. This is a real chance to grow."

"You leave in five days. Pack ahead of time and wrap up your handover."

I nodded.

Five days. Enough time to pack away every attachment and every memory this city held.

Just then my phone buzzed.

A message from my parents.

"The neighbor said you went by the house today? We've been so busy lately, we just forgot to tell you we'd moved."

I stared at the screen, my fingertips cold.

Half a month.

A full fifteen days.

Busy moving into the new house, settling into their comfortable new life.

And in all that time they couldn't spare the few seconds it would take to tell me.

I typed back only two words.

"Got it."

Then I went home to the little apartment I rented.

It was the only corner of this huge city that truly belonged to me.

The place was plain and clean.

Every appliance, every household thing, I had bought with my own money.

For three years I scrimped and saved.

I handed most of my salary over to other people and shortchanged no one but myself.

My eyes drifted to the closet.

A heavy black coat hung in the most prominent spot.

An old style, the edges slightly worn, seven years old.

And a treasure I'd kept for seven full years.

The winter of my freshman year.

My mother bought me a new piece of clothing for the first time on her own.

This black coat.

Seven years, and I could never bring myself to throw it out.

On countless nights when I wore myself down inside, I'd look at this coat and talk myself back to calm.

Telling myself over and over that my mother didn't not love me.

That I had a family too, that I was a child my parents had thought about too.

This coat was the one thing I could hold onto in my gray childhood,

the only proof I had that I'd once been loved.

While I was lost in it, my phone lit up again.

A message from my sister, Sharon Shepherd.

"Sis, Mom and Dad told me about you going all the way to the old house for nothing. You're not upset, are you?"

"I booked a table at a hotel tonight, my treat, call it me making it up to you. You have to come, okay?"

I looked at the screen, drifting for a moment.

Sharon and I had never been close, not even as kids.

She was the little princess everyone doted on.

I was the invisible one no one bothered with.

She was used to soaking up all of our parents' favoritism.

And just as instinctively, she overlooked that I existed.

But this time…

In five days I'd be leaving for the far western branch.

Twenty-two hundred miles away, over mountains and long roads.

The odds were I'd never set foot in Harrington again.

Call it one last goodbye.

I tapped out a single word in reply.

That evening I put on the black coat and headed out to meet her.

But I ran into rush hour, and the car crawled.

I messaged Sharon ahead.

"Traffic's bad, I might be about ten minutes late."

She replied quickly.

"No rush, we'll wait for you."

Such a simple line, and it stirred a faint warmth in me.

Maybe blood really did count for something in the end.

Maybe they weren't so cold after all.

"Okay."

3: 3

But when I hurried inside and pushed open the door to the private room,

every last bit of warmth froze over in an instant.

Half the dishes on the table were already picked clean.

Barbecue ribs, garlic butter king prawns, crème brûlée……

Every single one of them Sharon's favorite.

Nothing there for me.

Mom, Dad, and Sharon were talking and laughing, the mood easy and warm.

No one had waited for me.

The waiting in their invitation had only ever been an offhand courtesy.

That familiar ache rose up in my chest all at once.

Countless fragments of childhood came flooding back.

Meals at home had always gone like this.

The moment dinner started, my parents would reflexively send me off to do something.

Cut the fruit, or go bring in the laundry.

By the time I finished every little errand and came back,

the dishes I liked had long been cleaned out, leaving nothing but cold scraps.

More than twenty years, and it was still the same.

I pushed the hurt back down.

Pulled out a chair and sat without a word.

Mom lifted her eyes and looked me over.

Her gaze landed on the old coat I was wearing,

and her brows knit tight in an instant.

“Why would you wear an old thing like that out?”

Something clenched hard in my chest, my nose stinging.

The one and only piece of clothing she'd ever bought me, the one I thought she'd long forgotten.

She actually remembered.

But the next second, Sharon spoke up with a light laugh,

“Sis, you've actually still got that old coat?”

“Back then I got it dirty when I tried it on, but I didn't like it anyway, so Mom had nothing else to do with it and gave it to you.”

The air went dead silent.

I sat frozen where I was.

The proof of love I'd treasured, the thing that carried me through countless nights of hurt.

Turned out, from start to finish, it was just a piece of garbage she hadn't wanted.

The fingers holding my utensils gave out all at once.

The fork hit the floor with a clatter.

Seeing it, Dad quickly stepped in to smooth things over.

He took out his phone and sent me two hundred dollars.

“A grown woman, still wearing old clothes. Take the money and go buy yourself something new one of these days.”

Two hundred dollars, tossed off like it was nothing, and he thought that would settle me.

I lowered my eyes and nodded in silence. “Okay.”

The whole dinner, no one spared a thought for how I felt.

The three of them talked and laughed.

Picking food, chatting, every dish landing in Sharon's bowl.

I sat there quietly and didn't touch a thing.

Just kept pouring myself plain water, over and over.

As if that could dilute the bitterness churning inside me.

After the meal,

Mom spoke up, as though it were nothing much,

“Joy, your sister's about to graduate, and she's got nothing to do sitting around at home.”

“Your company's big, the pay's good. Can't you pull some strings and get your sister an internship there?”

The last trace of warmth left in me was gone completely.

I heard myself say, softly,

“So after she joins the company, will she be handing over half her salary to the family too? Same as me?”

And Mom blurted it out before she could think.

“How could she do that? Sharon's been raised so delicate at home, she could never take that kind of hardship.”

The words were barely out

before she realized what she'd said, her face stiffening slightly.

She rushed to patch it over,

“The money you handed over back then, we've been saving all of it for you. It'll all be yours in the future, of course.”

I gave a small laugh. “No need to wait for the future.”

“I'm leaving soon. Just give me back the money I handed over these past three years, that's all.”

Three full years, four thousand a month.

Not a cent short, all of it wrung out of my own blood and sweat.