Ten Years of Silence: The Daughter They Punished to Death

In the ten years they looked straight through me, I imagined my own death more times than I could count.

I pictured myself with my wrists cut open, and my mother holding me, crying, telling me she'd forgiven me long ago.

I pictured my father finding my note and finally regretting the workbook he'd torn apart.

Maybe my sister and brother would kneel at my bedside, calling my name over and over, begging me to open my eyes.

I even let myself hope, in the lowest part of me, to see them sobbing.

I wanted death to prove that I mattered in this family too.

At the very least, after I was gone, they would have to see me once.

The instant my body hit the ground, I felt no pain.

Only a kind of release.

My soul drifted up out of it, light as nothing, passed through eighteen floors, and came home again.

In the living room, the TV was still playing.

My mother was fastening the necklace she'd just picked out around my sister's neck, and my father was comparing two computers for my brother.

The sound of the fall must have carried up somehow.

My father shouted toward my room, annoyed.

"Keep it down in there!"

I stood frozen where I was.

It was the first time in ten years he'd said a word to me.

Before, even knowing he was scolding me, I would have run out happy.

I'd have poured him tea, washed fruit for my brother, and carefully smoothed things over with everyone.

"I'm sorry. I'll be quieter from now on."

As long as they answered me.

Even if they cursed at me, at least I'd feel like I wasn't just a patch of empty air anymore.

But this time, no one came out of the room.

My father seemed to sense something off too, and glanced back.

"Why's she so quiet?"

Even at that one question, my heart gave a jump on its own.

But my mother only sneered.

"Gets into that university and thinks she's grown wings."

"Not answering on purpose, trying to make us break the rule first."

My sister touched the new necklace at her throat and said, offhand,

"Patricia's the best at playing the victim."

"The fevers, the birthdays before this, didn't she always pull this same trick?"

My brother laughed along.

"See who caves and talks to her first."

A few short sentences, and the hope that had just started up in me was ground to nothing.

So they hadn't realized I was dead.

They only thought I was working an angle again.

Half an hour later, my mother started making dinner.

She stood in the kitchen doorway and looked toward my room out of habit.

All these years, the washing, the chopping, the scrubbing of pots, all of it was mine.

But today, no one came to help her.

She waited a while, her face darkening.

"Gets into that university and won't even do the chores anymore."

Still no answer.

My mother finally walked to my door and shoved it open.

The room was empty.

The window stood open, the curtain lifting high in the wind.

The acceptance letter lay by the bed, my tears still on it.