My Family Made a Group Chat Without Me, I Rose Above Them Chapter 01

My Family Made a Group Chat Without Me, I Rose Above Them Chapter 01

When I went back to my parents’ house for dinner, Mom was busy in the kitchen. “Nora, the tablet is freezing again. Can you take a look?”

While I was fixing it, a group message popped up. The chat was called [Happy Family].

The chat had six members: Dad, Mom, Ryan, my husband, my son, and Sophie.

My younger sister had reunited with her biological parents and moved out five years earlier.

I was the only one missing.

The message was a photo from Mom, showing a plate of spicy fried chicken.

Mom: [Sophie loves this. It just came off the stove. When are you all getting here? Nora’s sitting in the living room.]

Ryan: [I thought we agreed not to invite her today?]

Sophie replied right away: [Ryan, it’s just one dinner. Let her eat, and then she can leave.]

My son, Leo, sent a wounded-face emoji.

Mom wrote: [We’ll get her out early after dinner. Then we can plan tomorrow’s spa day.]

My husband Ethan, who had just gone out to buy white wine for cooking, replied: [Fine. I’ll make sure her office schedules her for overtime tomorrow.]

Ryan liked the message. [That’s my brother-in-law for you. You got her that job. Five years, and you haven’t let her figure it out once.]

Five years.

I’d been scheduled for “last-minute overtime” more than two hundred times.

My job hadn’t needed me nearly as much as I’d thought.

It was my family trying to work around me.

I scrolled upward.

The group had been created five years earlier. They shared bits of their lives and planned family outings there.

I scrolled to the year my postpartum depression had been at its worst. Leo was barely a month old. I couldn’t sleep all night, so I’d sat on the windowsill with him in my arms while he screamed.

The message they’d discussed most was: [Nora is being ridiculous. Don’t let her affect the baby.]

Whenever Sophie sent a message, everyone would sigh, [If only Sophie were still home with us.]

“You saw it?”

Mom came out of the kitchen. Her face went stiff when she saw the tablet in my hands.

I shut off the screen and looked up at her. “Mom, am I really your biological daughter?”

She frowned and set the plate of spicy chicken on the table. “Sophie has been gone for five years, and you’re digging through this now? What good is that supposed to do?”

I smiled and shook my head, forcing back my tears.

“Yeah. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

…

I turned and headed for the storage room.

She called after me, “Dinner’s almost ready. Where are you going now?”

I packed the things I had left in that house into a suitcase, one by one.

There wasn’t much.

One suitcase, and I hadn’t even filled it.

I’d spent almost half my life in that storage room.

When we were kids, Sophie said she was a light sleeper, so Mom moved my bedding in there that same day. After Sophie moved out, I thought I could finally move back into my own room.

Mom said, “Let’s keep that room open. Sophie might come back once in a while and need it.”

Five years.

Sophie came back twice a year and stayed for two nights each time.

Mom dusted that sunny bedroom with the balcony every day, opened the windows, and changed the sheets.

The storage room where I slept had no windows and no lock. The lightbulb had been burned out for three months, and no one remembered to replace it.

I’d lived in that house for more than twenty years, yet I mattered less there than someone who came home for two nights a year.

Mom pressed her lips together. “It’s just a group chat. Do you really have to throw a fit over it?”

I pulled up the suitcase handle. “You think this is only about the group chat?”

“What else would it be? Sophie went back to her biological parents, but she’s still part of this family. So what if she’s in the chat?”

The more she talked, the more her confidence returned. “You’re the one who comes home and starts picking fights. Is this family supposed to stay together or not?”

This family.

The family she talked about had never included me.

When we were little, Sophie would take whatever she wanted from me, and Mom would say, “You’re the older sister. Let her have it.”

Sophie said she was a light sleeper, so I moved into the storage room.

When Sophie got into college, Mom threw a three-day celebration.

When I was hospitalized for bleeding ulcers, Mom called and said she couldn’t leave the house.

I’d kept score.

Every time I did, the whole family met me with cold faces and disgusted looks.

When I stayed silent, Mom frowned slightly.

“You’re the older sister. Can’t you stop being so petty?”

“I am petty.” I dragged my suitcase toward the door. “I’m not eating this dinner.”

Mom grabbed the handle.

“Everyone is waiting to eat. If you leave now, what will Sophie think? She specifically reminded me to make your favorite dish!”

I stopped and looked back at the table.

Eight dishes covered the table, seven of them slick with oil and loaded with spice.

Sophie loved spicy food. Mom remembered that perfectly.

I had undergone partial stomach-removal surgery just a month earlier. The doctor’s orders had been crystal clear: no spicy food.

She remembered Sophie loved spicy chicken. She remembered Sophie hated cilantro. She remembered what time Sophie went to bed.

The only thing she didn’t remember was that her biological daughter had undergone surgery to remove half her stomach just a month earlier.

“Mom, is there a single thing on this table I can eat?”

The muscles in Mom’s face tightened. Maybe she finally remembered. She looked away.

But her hand still gripped my suitcase.

“Let go.”

One finger at a time, she loosened her grip.

I dragged my suitcase to the door and ran straight into Ethan, who had just returned with the white wine for cooking.

He looked at me, then at Mom, and his brow immediately knotted.

“You got into another fight with your mother? She’s your mother. Can’t you…”

“Enough.” I cut Ethan off and walked past him, pulling my suitcase behind me.

Behind me, I heard him lower his voice as he spoke to Mom.

“Leave her alone. It’s the same old thing. She’ll get over it in a couple of days.”