On Christmas morning, I watched my younger sister cry tears of joy as she unwrapped the key to her dream house. My parents clapped, and my mother whispered, “You’ll understand someday.” But I already understood, because I was the one who paid off the house they were supposed to lose.
My name is Clare Matthews, and I’ve spent thirty-two years being the invisible daughter in a family that only sees what it wants to see. The morning had started like every other Christmas in the Matthews household: the smell of cinnamon rolls wafting from the kitchen, the sound of Bing Crosby crooning from the old stereo system my father refused to replace, and the sight of our twelve-foot Douglas fir drowning in ornaments that each held a story. I’d arrived the night before, pulling into the driveway of my childhood home in Burlington, Vermont, with a trunk full of carefully wrapped presents and a heart full of hope that this year would be different.
I should have known better.
Lily was already there, of course. My younger sister had been staying with our parents for the past three months—”between opportunities,” as she liked to call it. The latest opportunity that hadn’t panned out was a poetry residency in Portland that had promised a stipend but delivered only exposure. Now she was back in her old room, the walls still painted the lavender she’d chosen at sixteen, working on what she called her “breakthrough collection” while our parents tiptoed around her artistic temperament.
“Clare,” Mom had exclaimed when I walked through the door, flour dusting her cheeks. “You made it! We weren’t sure with the weather and your busy schedule.” The subtext was clear: Lily’s schedule was never too busy. Lily always made it home. Clare was the one who sometimes chose work over family, responsibility over connection—the successful one who didn’t need them as much.
“Of course I made it,” I’d said, setting down my bags and accepting her quick hug. “It’s Christmas.”
Dad had emerged from his study then, wearing the same flannel shirt he’d owned since I was in high school. “There’s my girl,” he’d said, but his eyes were already drifting past me to the window. “Did you see Lily’s new poem in the Burlington Review? They featured her on the cover.” I had seen it. I’d also seen that the Burlington Review was a free literary circular that featured anyone who submitted. But I smiled and nodded because that’s what I did. That’s what I’d always done.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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