The Weight I Kept, The Family I Lost Chapter 07

The Weight I Kept, The Family I Lost Chapter 07

On the day of the funeral, Mom prepared a whole table of food.

Drumsticks, pork chops, scrambled eggs, and the cupcakes I loved most as a child.

She didn’t use the kitchen scale.

But when it came time to place the food in front of my portrait, she still instinctively asked, “Is that

too much?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she froze.

The next second, she started piling food onto the plate like a madwoman.

“A little more.”

“My Clara can eat more.”

“No one’s going to punish you today.”

The plate was piled high, and food spilled onto the floor.

Mom kept adding more.

“She’ll be hungry.”

“She went hungry from age twelve to eighteen.”

“For six whole years, she never had a single satisfying meal.”

Sophie came too.

She walked up to my portrait, and just as she said, “Clara,” Mom’s head snapped up.

“What did you call her?”

Sophie’s eyes were red–rimmed.

“I want to apologize to her.”

“I didn’t know she was really going to jump.”

But Dr. Levine had already handed the surveillance footage from outside the therapy room to the police.

Sophie had never fallen off a ladder.

She’d hidden in the stairwell and practiced her crying in front of the mirror three times.

She didn’t make the call until she’d made herself cry convincingly enough.

“Mom, it really hurts.”

“Come back right away.”

Sophie explained through her tears, “I just wanted you to come back.”

“You’d been with her for so long. Why couldn’t you spend some time with me?”

“Every time she refuses to eat, you drop everything and leave me behind.“”

“She’s doing it on purpose too!”

Dad slapped her across the face.

Sophie fell to the ground and stared at him in disbelief.

Dad had never laid a finger on her before.

She tore up my drawing, and Dad made me draw it again.

She hid my homework, and Dad told me not to make a big deal out of it.

She put a pork chop in my plate and left me hungry all night, and Dad just said she was being

inconsiderate.

It was precisely because they protected her every single time that she was certain: as long as she cried, Mom and Dad would always choose her.

Sophie suddenly screamed, “Why am I the only one to blame?”

“I didn’t buy that kitchen scale!”

“I didn’t pour out the food!”

“You’re the ones who told me to take her stuff!”

Mom’s raised hand froze in midair.

Sophie pointed at my portrait, tears streaming down her face.

“You’re the ones who said she was my older sister.”

“You’re the ones who said she wouldn’t die from skipping one meal.”

“No matter what I do, you always forgive me. But now that she’s dead, you’re going to blame me for everything?”

The relatives tried to calm things down.

“She’s still just a child.”

We’ve already lost one daughter. Are you going to lose the other one too?”

That night, Mom read through my entire diary.

On the back of the last page, there was a line of very faint pencil writing.

[If I died one day, would they finally admit that I’m the one they love most?]

Mom held the diary close and answered over and over again:

“Yes.”

“Mom loves you the most.”

“Clara, Mom really does love you the most.”

She finally said the words I’d wanted to hear my whole life.

But this time, I couldn’t hear them.