My Fiancé Married My Long Lost Sister on Our Wedding Day Chapter 11

My Fiancé Married My Long Lost Sister on Our Wedding Day Chapter 11

Ten years ago, Sophie Hartman was found seven months after she disappeared–at a shelter in the

next city. The police confirmed her identity there. Mom, Dad, and my brother went to pick her up. I

was left at home. Mom told me the child they found wasn’t my sister, that I should let go of hope..

The truth: Sophie refused to see me. “She lost me. Why does she get to be my sister? I want her to

know what it feels like to wait every day for family to come.”

She was thirteen. The psychologist recommended gradual steps to rebuild the relationship. But my parents sent her to my aunt’s house and kept pretending she was still missing. “Seeing Lena upsets Sophie. Give it a few years–she’ll grow out of it.”

Those few years became ten. My brother went to see her in the next city every month. Ethan too. Seven years ago, before he pursued me, he’d met Sophie first.

knew

On the second day of questioning, he confessed. “Sophie told me to get close to Lena. She said it would only be fair if Lena fell in love with me and then got abandoned at the altar.”

“You pursued her for seven years–for revenge?”

“At first.” He lowered his head. “But then I fell in love with her.”

“You loved her while staying involved with her sister?” Hotel records showed forty–six stays with Sophie over seven years. Every birthday, anniversary, sick night–he’d always found an excuse to

be absent.

His voice cracked. “Sophie needs me. Lena needs me. I wanted to take care of both of them. They’re

both important to me.‘

“Taking care of her–while helping someone else humiliate her?”

“I’ll make it up to her.”

“How do you make it up to the dead?”

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

The officer closed the record.

The parents‘ statements were checked too. They’d spent ten years not loving me–just pretending. Every hug, every gift, every reunion was part of the plan. Afraid I’d break down too soon, they’d

kept up the image of loving parents while quietly giving everything to Sophie.

When I got into college, they gave me two thousand dollars for living expenses, saying money was tight. That same month, they bought Sophie a twenty–five–thousand–dollar piano. When I was

hospitalized with a fever, my brother said he was out of town–he was actually celebrating Sophie’s birthday at the beach.

The house Grandma left me had been treated as Sophie’s dowry for five years. Only because Grandma had insisted on transferring it directly to me did they need my signature on the wedding

day.

“We didn’t want her dead.” Mom gripped the table, crying. “We just wanted Sophie to be happy. Lena was always so soft–a few bad days, and we could always cheer her up.”

Hearing the recording, I watched her calmly from outside the room.

So it wasn’t that they couldn’t love. It was that the child who’d been lost for a little while got all their sympathy. And I–the one who stayed–was the one they blamed.

“When the child was found at seven months, why did you keep saying she was still missing?”

Dad was quiet for a long time. “Sophie said she wanted Lena to feel guilty for life.”

“And you agreed?”

“It’s what we owed her.”

“What did she owe her?”

Dad went pale. Police retrieved the mall surveillance from ten years ago. On the footage, I didn’t take my sister away. The one who’d actually left Sophie in my care was Mom. She’d abandoned her children at the cake shop to meet an old friend. Before she left, she’d pointed at me–just a little girl -and said, “Watch your sister. Mom will be back in ten minutes.”

She’d been gone forty–seven minutes.

I hadn’t lost Sophie.