At the family party, I found my four-year-old daughter crying in the corner with her hand twisted at an unnatural angle. My sister was standing there laughing.
“It’s just a joke. She’s being dramatic.”
When I rushed to check my daughter’s injured hand, my sister pushed me away.
“Relax. I barely touched her.”
Dad added,
“Some kids just bruise easy.”
Mom agreed.
“Stop making a scene.”
I slapped my sister hard across the face and picked up my daughter to leave behind me.
Mom cursed,
“Take your bastard child and never come back.”
Dad threw a glass at us.
“Good riddance,” my brother added. “Finally getting rid of the drama.”
I rushed my daughter to the hospital where they found her hand was fractured.
But the next morning, Mom came to my house begging on her knees.
“Please give your sister a way to live.”
The sound of my daughter’s sobbing cut through the cheerful noise of the family barbecue like a knife. I was helping my aunt carry drinks from the kitchen when I heard it—that particular pitch of pain that every mother recognizes.
Instantly, my blood turned to ice. I dropped the pitcher I was holding and sprinted toward the back corner of the yard.
What I saw made my heart stop.
My four-year-old daughter, Ruby, was crumpled against the fence, her tiny body shaking with sobs. Her left hand hung at an angle that made my stomach lurch.
Standing over her, arms crossed and smirking, was my older sister, Veronica.
“What happened?” I screamed, falling to my knees beside Ruby.
Her face was streaked with tears and snot, her eyes wide with terror and pain.
Veronica rolled her eyes dramatically.
“It’s just a joke. She’s being dramatic. We were playing around and she fell. You know how clumsy kids are.”
I reached gently for Ruby’s injured hand, my fingers trembling.
She whimpered and tried to pull away.
The wrist was already swelling, turning an ugly purple-red color.
This wasn’t a simple fall.
I knew my daughter, and I knew when she was truly hurt versus when she wanted attention.
This was real.
“Playing around?” My voice came out strangled. “Her hand is broken.”
I moved to examine Ruby more closely, but Veronica shoved me hard in the shoulder.
I stumbled backward, nearly losing my balance.
“Relax. I barely touched her,” Veronica snapped. “You’re always overreacting with that kid. Maybe if you didn’t baby her so much, she wouldn’t be such a crybaby.”
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