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But I meant it.
I wanted a person who was mine. Somebody on my side of the glass.
My mother looked at me over the rim of her wineglass and said, “Why would we want another one when we already have you?”
And she meant it as a kindness.
She thought she was being sweet. We already have you. As if I were enough. As if I were the prize they’d been hoping for, instead of the thing they got and never quite knew what to do with.
They didn’t have another.
They didn’t even really have the first one. Not the way you’re supposed to.
And I’ve spent a long time wondering why they bothered at all. Two people who loved airports more than bedtimes. Two people who could go a week without thinking my name. People that careful with their freedom don’t have a baby by accident.
I figured it out eventually.
It took years, and it isn’t a pretty answer, but it’s the only one that fits.
They needed somewhere to put it.
The money, I mean.
The houses and the accounts and the things with my father’s name on them. You can work that hard for that long, build a fortune like a fortress, and then one cold morning, you remember dead people don’t get to spend any of it.
It just sits there.
It goes to a charity, or a cousin, or the government, unless you make someone of your own to hand it to.
So they made someone.
A vault with a heartbeat.
A place to land the inheritance so it wouldn’t feel like waste.
That’s me.
That’s the job.
The thought is so bleak it almost makes me laugh again, and this time it comes out wet around the edges.
I hate it.
I type back: I'm great, actually. Campaign's going amazing. Got invited to a gala this weekend.
I add, because I can't help it, because some part of me is still six years old with a list. At a palazzo. It's a big deal.
I send it.
I watch the screen. I count. The TV host laughs at something. Outside, a scooter buzzes down the wet street and fades.
The little delivered tag sits under my message. No dots. No reply.
I wait until the screen dims and goes black, and my own tired face stares back at me from the screen.
Then I open Instagram.
I close my eyes and try to hold my tears.
