The night my sister announced to three hundred people that I was destined to die alone, the hotel ballroom smelled like roses and refrigeration.
The Windsor Grand’s chandeliers threw soft light over sequined dresses and rented tuxedos, over pyramids of champagne flutes and a seven‑tier cake that looked like it had its own mortgage. A jazz quartet played a Cole Porter standard near the stage. I stood off to the side with a glass of champagne I hadn’t tasted, fingers resting on the stem, watching my sister Rachel pose under an arch of white flowers as if she’d been born for exactly this kind of spotlight.
“Sarah!” my mother hissed from behind me, the word softened only by the bubbles in her third glass.
“Stop hiding in the corner. Come stand near the cake. People are asking where you are.”
Of course they were.
The family disappointment should at least be visible.
I let her tug me closer to the stage. The band faded out. Marcus, my sister’s fiancé, handsome in a way that photographed well, took the mic.
He launched into a toast about finding your person, about knowing from the first date that Rachel was the love of his life. The room hummed with approval.
Then Rachel took the microphone.
“I want to thank my parents,” she said, blowing them a kiss. “And my friends from Hamilton Consulting, and Marcus’s wonderful family.” She tightened her arm around my shoulders, pulling me into the light.
“And especially my sister Sarah, who has been there for me forever, even though we could not be more different.”
Polite laughter.
“Sarah is brilliant with computers,” she went on. “She likes quiet, and routines, and working from home in her sweatpants. I’ve spent years trying to introduce her to people, to help her meet someone.
But tonight I realized something.”
The room settled. The band stopped rustling. Marcus smiled indulgently.
“My sister,” Rachel said, her voice warm and carrying, “might just be one of those people who is meant to be alone.
She’s so particular, so set in her ways, so difficult, that I honestly think she’ll never find anyone. And that’s okay. I’ve made peace with it.
I hope she can too.”
The words landed like a champagne flute shattering on marble.
A sympathetic murmur swept the room. A few people clapped, the kind of awkward applause that fills the space where someone should object. All eyes shifted to me, waiting for my gracious reaction to being declared emotionally defective as part of the entertainment.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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