The Sister Who Replaced Me

I was found three years after I disappeared.

I was only nineteen, but I'd gone blind and was pregnant.

My parents held me, sobbing. "My dear daughter, you've suffered so much..."

But I asked softly, "Where's Ruth?"

Vivian quickly explained.

"She didn't mean to lose you that year. I already punished her—no snacks for a month."

"Don't blame her, okay?"

But I remember when I was little.

I just tripped once, and Mom grabbed a knife and stormed over to the neighbor's kid's house to raise hell.

Even when people spat at her and called her a shrew.