Chapter 2

2: 2

2.

I clutched my cheek and stumbled back a few steps.

It was true. Melinda had always given in to me.

The dress-up doll Mom bought, she handed to me, and then Mom turned around and bought her a new one.

The little dress Dad bought, she handed to me, and then Dad wired her money to buy her own.

From the time she was small, she had all the love and all the money she could want.

Of course she was willing to give things up.

My head hung to one side, my cheek burning.

Dad pressed his lips together, his voice cold.

"Kneel. Kowtow to your sister and admit what you did."

I stayed where I was.

The next second, a mop handle swept across the backs of my knees.

My legs buckled and I went down hard, kneeling in front of Melinda's memorial altar.

I tried to get up, but Lambert pinned me in place so I couldn't move.

Mom came out of Melinda's room with a notebook.

She opened to the first page, cleared her throat, and said,

"Since you won't admit it, then let everyone hear just how much you've owed your sister all these years."

"At three, April lost Melinda's rag doll. No apology, no replacement."

"At seven, April broke Melinda's pencil case, and Melinda had nothing to write with."

"At twelve, April snuck into Melinda's dress, and when she got caught she wouldn't give it back, and she tore a hole in it."

Mom's voice climbed higher and higher, and my body went colder and colder.

That wasn't how it happened. Kneeling on the floor, my shoulders trembling, I said,

"But afterward I always—"

Only the relatives around me were murmuring, and Aunt Colleen pitched her voice sharp and cut over mine.

"You still have the nerve to explain. Your sister's diary spells it all out. You've been a scheming little thing since you were born!"

My great-aunt shook her head and sighed.

"This is what an ungrateful stray is like. She should've been given away long ago…"

My aunt-in-law let out a cold laugh.

"Melinda was such a lovely girl, and you go and steal even her man."

I dropped my head and closed my eyes, murmuring, "That's not how it was."

Everything Melinda ever handed down to me, when did I not pay it back?

She gave me the rag doll, and for three straight months I couldn't bring myself to spend a cent of my allowance.

I saved up and bought her a doll that blinked its eyes. That doll is still sitting on her desk to this day.

The pencil case, Melinda didn't want it and gave it to me herself.

After I broke it, I apologized, and I gave her my own pencil case.

And that dress, Melinda said she couldn't fit into it anymore and passed it to me.

Later, for her birthday, I used my allowance to buy her a more expensive one.

Mom and Dad even said back then, "April has good taste."

I thought Mom and Dad would see what I did.

But all they ever saw was what Melinda gave up. They never once remembered that I paid it back.

I forced myself up on the strength I had left, my knees aching so badly I nearly went down again.

I swept a glance over the relatives behind me and demanded,

"Which one of you ever saw me slip Lambert anything?"