The Weight I Kept, The Family I Lost Chapter 08

The Weight I Kept, The Family I Lost Chapter 08

After the funeral, Sophie had nightmares for seven days straight.

Every night, she woke up screaming, saying she dreamed I was standing on the windowsill asking her, “Am I younger than you now?”

At first, Mom thought she was just scared.

Then, on the eighth day at dinner, Sophie suddenly brought out the smashed kitchen scale.

She placed her food on it and started picking pieces out, a little at a time.

Seven and a quarter ounces.

She tossed out a spoonful of potatoes, then picked out a piece of lettuce.

Mom rushed over and snatched the plate away.

“What are you doing?”

Sophie clung to the plate, crying and refusing to let go.

“That’s how Clara stole you away from me.”

“She doesn’t eat, so you all love her.”

“Then I won’t eat either.”

“If I drop down to eighty–eight pounds, will you love me again?”

Mom froze in her tracks.

The next day, Sophie refused to eat.

On the third day, she started making herself throw up.

Mom brought food to her mouth, but she pointed at my portrait and screamed, “Clara is dead, and you still love her!”

“I’m alive! Why won’t you look at me?”

Only then did Mom and Dad realize their younger daughter had also been sick for a long time.

She’d known from a young age that as long as she cried loud enough, she could take everything that

belonged to me.

After I died, crying no longer worked. So she started imitating me.

She finally learned the most terrifying rule in this household.

If you want to be loved, you have to hurt yourself first.

Dr. Levine said Sophie could no longer tell whether her parents loved her in a normal

way;

My death had taken away the person she could step on to prove she was the favored one.

She started to panic. She grew jealous of a dead person. And she began to believe that the only way.

to win back what she’d lost was to end up worse off than I was.

The doctor recommended inpatient treatment.

Mom and Dad didn’t say “she’s still little” anymore.

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For the first time, they admitted Sophie wasn’t born bad.

It was because they’d allowed her to hurt me again and again, and rewarded her with favoritism

every time, that she’d learned to treat competition as a way of surviving.

They’d already lost one daughter.

They couldn’t stand by and watch the other one destroy herself the same way.

Six months later, Sophie finished her treatment and came home.

She’d lost some weight and grown much quieter.

As she walked in, she habitually called out, “Mom.”

Mom was in the kitchen making soup.

The spoon in her hand paused for a moment, but she didn’t rush over to hug Sophie like she used to.

Sophie’s eyes welled up.

“Are you still mad at me?”

Mom turned off the stove.

“I have no right to blame only you.”

Sophie lowered her head.

“Then why didn’t you come see me even once?”

Dad pulled a stack of bus tickets from the drawer.

Every weekend, they’d taken the bus to the treatment center, but they never once went inside.

“The doctor said that whenever you see us, you’ll throw tantrums and go on a hunger strike to force us to prove we love you more.”

Mom said hoarsely, “If we go in there, you’ll never learn that you can be loved without hurting yourself.”

Sophie suddenly burst into my room.

The room had been completely cleared out. Only a table remained.

Two plates sat on the table.

One was full of food.

The other held only seven ounces of cold mashed potatoes.

That was the assignment Dr. Levine had given Mom and Dad.

To use my diary as a guide and recreate every meal I’d eaten over those six years.

The first time Mom ate only seven ounces, she woke up in the middle of the night with stomach

pain.

She cried and said she couldn’t take it.

But Dad reminded her, “Clara ate like this for six years.”

Sophie stood in front of the plate of cold mashed potatoes, her face growing paler.

“Are you going to punish me too?”

Mom shook her head and dumped the cold mashed potatoes into the trash.

“We already punished Clara.”

“From now on, no one in this family will ever be punished with hunger.”

“You can eat your fill. But you have to face what you’ve done.”

The next day, Dad took Sophie back to that mall.

In the surveillance footage, my twelve–year–old self held my face–still stinging from Mom’s slap -and bent down to pick up the piece of bread covered in dust.

Six–year–old Sophie hid behind the railing on the second floor, laughing.

Sophie watched for a long time.

“Did Clara know I was up there?”

“Yes, she did.”

Then why didn’t she tell you?”

Dad’s eyes reddened.

“She did.”

“We just never believed her.”

For the first time, Sophie didn’t cry and defend herself.

Before leaving the mall, she took out a piece of candy and placed it where I’d picked up the bread all

those years ago.

She took a few steps, then turned back.

Dad asked her why.

She clenched the candy in her palm.

“Clara can’t eat it anymore.”

“I just left it there to make myself feel better.”

On the anniversary of my death, Mom and Dad bought a small cake.

No weighing.

Mom cut the biggest piece and placed it in front of my photo.

Dad set a whole drumstick beside it.

Sophie stood at the very back.

She didn’t ask for my forgiveness. She just placed the piece of candy next to the drumstick.

“Clara, this is for you.”

“This time, I won’t take it.”

Mom stroked my thin face in the photo and said through her tears, “Clara, you don’t have to be so

grown–up anymore.”

A breeze blew in through the window.

The candle on the cake flickered.

If I were still alive, I would be nineteen years old now.

For twelve years, I fought desperately to turn back from a big sister into a child.

It wasn’t until the very last moment of my life that I finally understood.

I never really wanted to be thin.

I just wanted to be smaller. Just a little smaller.

Small enough to be smaller than Sophie.

Small enough for everyone to feel sorry for me.

Now, my wish has finally come true.