My mother loves me more than my brothers. That love she shows me gives a lot of problems with my brothers.
It started when I was little. Whenever I scraped my knee, she would rush over, kiss the hurt, and hold me longer than she held them. When report cards came, she praised my grades the loudest. When dinner was served, the biggest piece of chicken always found its way to my plate. My brothers noticed. At first they only rolled their eyes. Then the eye-rolls became sharp words. Then the sharp words became silence.
By the time we were teenagers, the house felt divided.
My older brother stopped speaking to me except when he had to. My younger one started competing for every scrap of attention, as if love were a limited resource and I had already taken more than my share. Arguments broke out over small things—who used the last of the milk, who left the light on, who got to sit in the front seat. Underneath every fight was the same quiet accusation: She loves him more.