Susie was not one to cast judgment on another person because she was not that kind of girl; that was not the kind of person her parents had raised her to become. In the brightly lit hollow that was her bedroom, she stood and wondered why her brother could be so mean and hateful to her. They had spent nine months together in their mother’s womb. That should have been enough time to bond, in Susie’s opinion.
Timothy was older by nine minutes. It was hardly the blink of an eye, Susie was sure, when it came to a mother, mewling in pain, giving birth to two infants naturally. Still, Timothy was older and Susie had always had the idea of an older brother in her mind. If he couldn’t find his way to protecting or comforting her, he could at least stop going out of his way to ruin her things.
Susie picked up the shattered pieces of the porcelain doll that lay on the floor. It had been a gift from her grandmother. She knew partially why Timothy treated her the way that he did. It was because Susie was treated differently by the family, though she did not know why. She remembered when she had received the doll. It had been at their tenth birthday party, when they still had their birthday parties together. They had been unwrapping gifts at the same time and Susie unwrapped the doll, much to her delight. It had been one she had eyed for many weeks. Her mother must have told her grandmother. She squealed with happiness and thanked her grandmother. The doll had held a prized position on the shelf above Susie’s books for four years.
After her excitement has subsided, Susie looked at her brother, who had unwrapped a pair of socks, and a jacket, both of which had come from their grandmother. Her excitement dissipated considerably. She had never liked when the pair of them were treated unequally like this, not only because it left Timothy feeling inadequate, but also because he took out his frustrations on Susie. Once, when their father had brought candy home for each of them, but Susie had gotten more, Timothy had cut off one of her pigtails in her sleep. She would have guessed by the look on his face that the doll would have been broken the night of their birthday, but instead Timothy had decided to rub red paint into one of Susie’s favorite dresses she wore during tea with her stuffed animals.
So why was the doll broken now? Susie had not done anything she could think of. She could not recall any special treatment she had received that her parents had not given to Timothy or shown toward him. She wondered, getting upset, if his acts of revenge had become random bursts of rage.
“Will I even be able to calculate when he will be this way toward me?” she thought to herself. “No. Enough is enough”
Mustering up all the courage she had, she marched into the living room where Timothy was watching television alone. Clutching the now faceless porcelain doll in her shaking hand, she held it in front of her and only managed to squeak out the word, “Why?”
He glanced up at her lazily. “Huh?”
“Why, Timothy? Why did you do this? Nothing even happened this time!”
He stared at her for a moment, as if he hadn’t even heard her. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. The thought had crossed her mind sometimes that there was something wrong with him; it was why she never screamed and yelled at him like this. But this was too much. Susie thought of the doll’s crushed face, her pigtail, her dress, the countless other things Timothy had destroyed over the yearsrage bubbled insides of her that she could not quell. It came spilling out of her all at once. “TELL ME TIMOTHY! WHY?!”
He seemed shocked out of a trance. Shaking his head he looked at her and said quietly, “I’m sorry, Susie.” Timothy got up slowly and turned the TV off. Susie became impatient. An apology was not what she wanted. What she wanted was an explanation.
“Yes that’s fine. But that’s not why yo-“
He held a hand up to silence her. Sticking his hand underneath the couch cushion, he pulled out a small sheet of paper. “I was going through mom’s things. I know I’m not supposed to, but I needed scissors to finish that stupid craft assignment for Johnson’s class. Nobody was home. I found this.” He thrusted the paper toward her.
Staring at him curiously, she took it. The living room was dimly lit. She had to move into the wooden paneled brightness of the kitchen to read it. She saw it was a letter, written in her mother’s handwriting to her grandmother. Apparently it had never been sent, but for whatever reason, her mother had kept it. It read:
Dear mom,
I do not know what to do with these feelings. Two babies. We only wanted one. Susie is such a joy, the apple of our eye, the daughter we always wanted. Timothy is our son, and I feel love for him, but we were not prepared for two. We did not want two. We were not prepared to admit it in our hearts until the doctor told us Susie was on the way, but we did not want a son, and now they both are here. What do I do mother?
I find myself treating him differently. I feel like he isn’t mine. Charles feels the same way. Its as if he was just extra baggage when I was carrying him, a penance I had to pay to bring my dear Susie into this world. I never knew there could be such happiness and unhappiness that could coexist in the human heart. I am afraid to say these words out loud for fear of making them more real. I need your help.
Love, Margaret
Susie’s head reeled. She leaned against the wall, feeling the cheap wooden paneling give slightly behind her. Fourteen years of inequality in the house because her parents had only wanted a daughter, and had had twins instead? She reread the letter.
“I guess it makes sense now,” she heard Timothy say quietly.
Susie was quiet for a moment longer. “This doesn’t mean anything,” she rationalized. “This is how they felt then. How she felt then. Its been –“
“Fourteen years. They still treat me different. Still treat you betterI always felt out of place I guess.”
The room felt devoid of air, as Timothy rubbed his shoe into the carpet and sat down on the couch. Susie marched into the kitchen and hurled the porcelain doll into the trashcan. Fourteen years of awkward moments with a sibling whom she only wanted to be close with because her parents could not love the son they had. She sat next to her brother.
“I never liked that doll anyway,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry for all those things. I thought it was because you were better.”
“We’re the same, even if they don’t think so.”
He placed his arm around her shoulder. For the first time, she felt like she had a brother.
The door slammed, announcing her parents’ arrival home from work that day. In spite of how they had taught her to be, she hated them, and decided from then on, rather than be in the middle, it was Timothy and Susie against them. They could have a daughter and a son, or neither at all.
