Part 2
Growing up, I thought my sister’s name contained some kind of spell.
Adults said it like a charm: “Lily this, Lily that, Lily’s so talented, Lily’s so pretty.” They stretched it into three syllables packed with delight. Lil-ee-ee.
Mine was shorter. Emma. Easy. Functional. Said in clipped tones when something needed to get done.
“Emma, take out the trash.”
“Emma, help your sister with her project.”
“Emma, stop making such a big deal. Your sister’s under a lot of pressure.”
People love to talk about middle children getting lost in the shuffle. I wasn’t a middle child. I was just the backup plan.
Lily arrived three years after me, screaming and dramatic even as a newborn. Where I had been quiet and content in every baby video my mom sometimes watched, she flailed and wailed, demanding space. My mother used to joke that Lily came out “camera-ready.” She wasn’t wrong. Lily’s first full sentence was, “Watch me.”
I learned early that being overlooked was different from being invisible.
Invisible means you can float through a room unnoticed, do whatever you want, and no one cares. Overlooked means they see you just enough to expect your help, your labor, your reliability—but not enough to offer gratitude or pride in return.
I got good grades because it felt like something I could control. A at the top of a paper? That was mine. One thing they couldn’t assign to Lily.
When report cards came home, Mom would glance at mine, say, “Of course,” and move on. When Lily brought home a B, it was a family event. There were cupcakes.
By high school, Lily was the star: the cheer captain, the one voted “Most Likely to Get Discovered.” My achievements stayed small on the fridge, tucked into corners around her glossy photos. My dad would pat my shoulder before heading to yet another of her games.
“You’re our rock,” he’d say. “We don’t worry about you. You’re going to be fine.”
The funny thing is, the words were meant as praise. They felt like dismissal.
When college acceptance letters arrived, they came in two stacks—mine and hers. Mine were practical: state schools, a small scholarship from a regional competition, an offer from a university a few hours away with a decent financial aid package.
