She shook her head frantically. "No, it's not true. It's not me. It can't be!"
Dad pulled Laurel into his arms and murmured softly, "It's okay, it's okay. I'm going to find the best doctor to treat you. Everything's going to be fine."
That night, Dad started pulling every string he had, reaching out to contacts for a reliable specialist. Mom sat hunched over her phone, searching everything she could find about leukemia. Neither of them slept. They spent the entire night making calls and reading articles.
Eventually, Dad managed to track down a doctor through his connections. After reviewing the test results, the doctor said the situation wasn't critical. With proper treatment, there was still a good chance of recovery. But the most urgent priority was finding a bone marrow match.
Hope. They finally had a sliver of it. Dad grabbed his phone and fired off a message in the family group chat:
Laurel is sick. She needs a bone marrow donor. Anyone willing to go in for HLA typing gets $5,000. If you're a match and agree to donate, $50,000.
The relatives went wild.
This was easy money. All you had to do was show up and get tested, and you walked away five grand richer.
Someone asked: Do we get paid just for going?
Dad didn't hesitate. Yes. Just show up, and the money's yours.
Monday morning, Mom and Dad marched into the hospital with a parade of relatives in tow. Every time someone had their blood drawn, Dad transferred five thousand dollars on the spot.
By the end of the day, twenty people had been tested.
Dad had spent a hundred thousand dollars. Just like that.
Three days later, the results came back. Not a single match. Not one. Not even Mom or Dad themselves.
Laurel's condition was getting worse. She locked herself in her room and refused to come out. She stopped going to work. She stopped eating. All she did was sit there scrolling through her phone, reading everything she could find about leukemia.
The doctor warned that this couldn't go on. Most patients weren't killed by the disease itself, he said. They were killed by the fear. If Laurel kept spiraling like this, things could take a very bad turn.
Mom and Dad panicked. They stopped ordering me around to cook and started making Laurel's meals themselves, trying something new every day to tempt her appetite.
Mom pawned the gold jewelry I'd bought her and used the money to buy Laurel the designer bags she loved. Dad sold the watch I'd given him and bought Laurel pretty new clothes.
These were all things Laurel used to obsess over. But now, none of it mattered to her. Not the bags, not the clothes, not any of it.
You only understand how precious health is once you've lost it. Everything else is just noise.
The atmosphere at home was suffocating. Mom and Dad walked around with dark, drawn faces every single day. At mealtimes, you couldn't make a sound. Not even the clink of a spoon.
I started to feel guilty. Part of me wanted to tell them the truth.
I didn't want Laurel to keep living like this.
All I'd wanted was to see how far they'd go for her. To see, with my own eyes, just how deep the favoritism ran.
I never wanted her to suffer.
I was just about to come clean.
Then Mom turned to me, her eyes bloodshot and blazing.
"Why isn't it you?" she spat. "Why couldn't it have been you, Lillian?"
"When I was pregnant with you, I thought for sure you'd be a boy. But no, you turned out to be another girl, and not just any girl, a colicky, impossible nightmare of a child!"
"Up all night, every single night. Still needing to be nursed at eighteen months! If it weren't for you, I never would have lost my job!"
She was right about one thing: Mom despised me. Always had.
According to her, Laurel had been a perfect baby from the day she was born. Ate, slept, ate, slept. Never caused a moment of trouble. Because Laurel was so easy, Grandma and Grandpa Sally and Andrew were happy to come help out. Once Laurel was a little older, Mom went back to work.
Then, when Laurel turned three, the grandparents started pushing for a grandson.
So Mom, buckling under the pressure, got pregnant again. With me.
