My twin brother's SAT scores cleared the college-admissions cutoff, and that same day, our parents booked the biggest five-star hotel in town for a lavish college celebration party.
My mother caked my face in heavy makeup, put me in a red gown, and stationed me at the hotel entrance as the hostess.
She held a sash so red it hurt to look at, and without a word she looped it over my head.
The gold lettering read: In joyous celebration of Earl Swanson's admission. With deepest thanks to his teachers.
"Today is your brother's big day. You're his sister, so you'll help hold up appearances."
She cinched the sash tighter and hissed low against my ear.
"Straighten your back. Smile. Stop looking like the world owes you a funeral. You'll wreck your brother's luck."
I caught my own reflection in the glass door, painted and gaudy, and dragged up a smile uglier than crying.
The teachers filed into the lobby one after another. Not one of them noticed the girl at the door was me.
Inside, my parents bent at the waist, raising their glasses to toast each teacher in turn.
At the entrance, I stood for three hours. Not a sip of water passed my lips.
Late that night, a black car screeched to a stop in the alley outside our house.
Four large men got out, dragged me straight off my bed, shoved me into the car, and delivered me to a reform boot camp.
It was only later that I learned my own parents had signed the papers to send me there to be "corrected."
Three days after that, people from the university admissions office smashed the lock and came storming into the facility.
"We're here for this year's statewide humanities valedictorian..."
1.
On the electronic screen above the hotel doors, giant characters scrolled past:
Welcome, honored teachers, to the Swanson family's celebration! Congratulations to our boy, Earl Swanson, on his admission.
Chin lifted, Earl had just stepped through the hotel's revolving door.
Then he turned right back and came straight up to me, arms crossed, leaning in.
He stared at my face for two full seconds, then burst out laughing.
"Ha! Daniela Swanson, it really is you?"
"I only said it as a joke. Didn't think Mom would actually make you stand at the door greeting people."
"Gotta say, though, these two ape-butt cheeks she painted on you aren't half bad. Festive. Ha!"
Earl clutched his stomach, doubled over laughing.
I kept my face flat and snapped, "Laugh it off and get lost."
"Mom, sis is being mean to me."
He clapped a hand to his chest like he'd suffered some terrible wrong, sniffling as he turned toward our mother.
"Mom, I'm fine, really."
"I just can't stand it. Fine, she's mean to me. But how could she make fun of you two?"
My mother's brow knotted tight. "Make fun of us how?"
"She said, she said I only got into some garbage school and you still had the nerve to throw a party. Said you didn't even care that the teachers would laugh in your faces."
Her hand flew up, and the next second my cheek was burning.
"Apologize to your brother! Garbage school? I see it now. You just can't stand to see him do well."
She jabbed her finger into my temple.
"On his big day, too. You've clearly been fed too well. Fine. No dinner for you tonight."
I'd been used to it my whole life.
Years ago, my mother nearly bled out during a difficult birth. A labor that turned into an emergency C-section, and to save her life the doctors took her uterus.
I was born a few minutes first, perfectly healthy.
Earl inhaled fluid and got a lung infection. Straight out of the womb, he went into the neonatal ICU.
My grandmother hired some lame old fortune-teller to perform rituals and drive off the bad luck. Forty-nine days of them, start to finish.
The man said my fate was too "hard," that I was cursing my brother, that I'd stolen his fortune from him back in the womb.
And they believed every word of it.
From preschool on, they begged and maneuvered to get me and Earl placed in the same class.
"Listen, girl. You take good care of your brother at school. You owe him that."
Every morning before we left, my mother said the same thing.
For years I carried Earl's backpack, did his homework, took the beatings from the neighborhood punks meant for him.
Now I looked at Earl, standing a full head taller than me, without a trace of the sickly boy left in him.
When Earl failed a test, my mother said it was because I hadn't looked after him, that I'd distracted him from his studies.
When Earl got heatstroke playing basketball, she blamed me for coming back too slow with his water, said I'd done it on purpose to hurt her precious son, said I had wicked intentions.
When Earl scraped his head, my grandmother said my hard fate had brought a "blood omen" down on her darling grandson.
For a long time, I believed it too. I believed I was the problem, so I didn't cry, didn't make a fuss.
Whatever I did for Earl, I told myself it was only right.
But the day the high school placement scores came out, I'd scored a full eighty points higher than Earl.
I wanted to apply to the top high school. The very next day, Earl launched a hunger strike.
He lay in bed looking frail, his voice rasping. "Mom, it's all my fault. I'm useless. I couldn't get into the top school."
"Alone at the second school, without my sister watching my back, those punks will beat me to death. I might as well just starve myself now."
My mother reached out and stroked Earl's hair, aching for him, then turned and shouted at me.
"Daniela, if you dare go behind our backs and apply to the top school, you won't see a dime for tuition or living expenses. Not one cent."
My father sat by the door, seven or eight cigarette butts crushed at his feet. It was a long while before he spoke.
"Dani, the second school isn't so bad. As long as you study hard, you can still get into a good college."
My mother cupped a hand over her lower belly. "Once you're at the second school, look after your brother more. Let him focus and get into a good college. You owe him that."
Every time she pulled out that line, all I could do was give in.
As though every misfortune they'd ever suffered was mine to answer for.
But this time, with college on the line, I wasn't going to give in again.
