My aunt Lisa and I teamed up and bought a house for my mom. Mom immediately posted three updates on Facebook, each one filled with photo albums. “My daughters bought me a house, can you believe it? Look at this huge yard! Three stories!” “Oh my God, this place has three bathrooms! Now I’ll have to decide which one is most convenient when I need to pee!” “What do you think? My girls aren’t bad, huh? So, Facebook friends, have your sons bought you a house yet?” She gleefully tagged every relative in each post. Especially Uncle Jim, Aunt Barb, Uncle John, and Aunt Karen. She didn’t leave anyone out! Her motto was “sharing the love equally.” My grandma and mom had kids on the same day. In rural Appalachia back then, that kind of thing was a scandal. Everyone in town would whisper about it behind your back. But my grandma didn’t care. When Lisa was born, she wasn’t breathing well, her face blue from lack of oxygen. Apparently, my grandma took one look, called her “ugly,” and left her by the door. Mom had just given birth to me, and with her motherly instincts in overdrive, she couldn’t resist the sound of a baby crying. She picked up Lisa, brought her inside, and started feeding her. My dad and grandpa heard about the birth and rushed home from the construction site in their truck. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it. Just before reaching home, they crashed into a ditch and both died on the spot. When my aunt Karen and grandma found out, they stormed into the room where Mom was recovering. They snatched me and Lisa, cursing us as jinxes. “These two cursed us! They killed our father and brother! We should drown them in the river!” Mom was the best seamstress in town. She wasn’t just skilled; she was strong too. Even though she was recovering from childbirth, she wasn’t weak. She grabbed Lisa out of Aunt Karen’s arms, put her back in the crib, and kicked Aunt Karen right in the chest. Karen was left gasping for air, unable to speak. Mom then turned to my grandma, who was about to say something, and snapped, “Get out! It’s bad enough that you’re sharing postpartum with your daughter-in-law. Now you’re coming to my room to cause trouble?” Mom and Dad had just married. They were in the honeymoon phase, deeply in love. Losing him so suddenly broke her heart, but life didn’t allow her to show any weakness. She knew crying during recovery could harm her eyesight, and as a seamstress, bad eyes would end her career. She raised two kids by herself and pushed through the postpartum period, even though Dad’s family treated her horribly. Luckily, she had a lot of friends in the community, and they came over to help out. Aunt Karen and Grandma tried to stir up trouble, but Mom eventually put a sickle under the bed. After that, they finally left her alone.
But the peace didn’t last long. Once Mom recovered from giving birth, Uncle Rick and Aunt Debbie showed up first, claiming they had paid to build the house. They said that once Grandma and Grandpa were gone, the house should belong to them. They threw Mom’s bedding off the bed and told her to leave. Then Uncle John and Aunt Karen followed right behind, worried they wouldn’t get a piece of the house if they were too late. They said that since the farmland was divided among the sons, and since Dad had died, his portion of the land should now go to the remaining men in the family. Aunt Karen was the loudest, even though it had nothing to do with her. She was the typical bossy woman of the countryside, always sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. I realized that later, when Grandma needed care in her old age, and Karen showed her true colors. When Mom left Grandma’s house with us, she only took a small bag of clothes. They wouldn’t even let her take a single cup. Neighbors gathered outside. Some were there to watch the drama, others shouted at Grandma’s family for being so heartless. The yard was packed with onlookers. Grandma stood there, hands on her hips, shouting, “Why do any of you care? Let’s see how Maggie and her brats survive out there!” And with that, she threw Lisa out of bed again. “You wanted to take her so bad, you take her! If you hadn’t interfered back then, she would’ve frozen to death, and I wouldn’t have had to raise this useless girl! I don’t take care of daughters; they’re a bad investment!” Mom just kept walking, carrying me on her back. She never looked back until she heard Lisa’s sharp cries behind her, along with Grandma’s curses. Unable to bear it any longer, Mom ran back, grabbed Lisa, and carried both of us away. The bag of clothes? She didn’t even bother with it.
Mom’s family lived nearby, just a 30-minute walk according to her. So, anything happening with Dad’s family reached them pretty quickly. When we arrived at Uncle Jim and Aunt Barb’s, the door was locked. It was a clear message: We weren’t welcome. Grandma Mildred couldn’t do much. She just sighed, looking at the two children Mom had brought back with her. With nowhere else to go, we returned to Dad’s hometown. There was a small shack near Grandma’s house, one Dad had built when he worked at a nearby fishing pond. Aunt Karen wanted to claim it too, but Mr. Gregory Smith, the town councilor, stepped in. “That shack belongs to Maggie’s husband. Everyone here knows it. Now that he’s gone, it’s all she and her kids have. If you try to take it, you’ll bring down a curse on yourselves.” And so, we finally had a place to stay. It was rundown, but it kept the rain off our heads. Everything in the house, from the furniture to the decorations, was made by Mom’s own hands. Her hands, once so skilled, were now covered in callouses and cuts. With sheer determination, Mom raised me and Aunt Lisa, even though life was tough. But somehow, she managed to get us through it. When it was time to register us for Social Security numbers, Mom didn’t make a big deal out of it. She just told the clerk we were sisters, and both of us ended up with her last name: Johnson. Sarah and I were about six when we finally pieced together the full story from all the town gossip. But neither of us ever asked Mom to confirm any of it. Hardship isn’t worth remembering; once you get past it, you move on. That’s why Sarah and I were extra responsible kids. By the time we were six, we were already doing household chores while other kids our age were still playing. Sometimes, Grandma would see us and send us to help out Uncle Rick and Uncle John’s families. She’d say, “We’re all family.” Whenever that happened, Mom would curse them out the next day until they were bald from stress. Mom didn’t have fancy revenge tactics, but she knew how to make a point. She’d purposely trip and spill manure in front of Grandma’s house or “accidentally” divert water from their rice paddies, leaving them half empty. Later, Aunt Debbie died at home during childbirth while trying for a second baby, hoping for a son. Out of curiosity, I peeked into the doorway for a moment, and Grandma stormed out and slapped me across the face. “You little jinx! I knew it! The reason Debbie couldn’t give birth was because you were standing here!”
I got slapped and didn’t dare say much when I got home. With a bright red handprint on my face, I spent the next few days avoiding Mom, terrified she’d notice. Mom was too busy trying to keep Sarah and me fed and clothed to notice anyway. But avoiding my sister Sarah? That was impossible. We shared everything—food, chores, and space. She was braver than me and dragged me straight over to Grandma’s house, ready to confront her. We barely got a few words out before we saw our cousin Rachel running out of Uncle Rick’s house, crying her eyes out. Grandma followed behind with a shovel, screaming, “Cry, cry, cry! All you ever do is cry! You killed your mother with your crying! You’ve got a baby brother now, so stop acting like you’re at a funeral all the time!” For better or worse, Aunt Debbie was gone, but the baby boy she had was undeniably beautiful. Even Mom couldn’t help but take a second look when she passed by. When she got home, she said to us, “The baby’s cute, no doubt about it, but he sure got unlucky being born into the Johnson family.” Not even two months later, Sarah and I came home from kindergarten and saw Grandma standing at our front door, with Rachel holding her baby brother in her arms. Sarah, who always had a sharp eye for trouble, threw our backpacks inside and grabbed my hand, ready to head back out and play. Grandma, as usual, started yelling, “Play, play, play! That’s all you two ever do! You come home from school, and you don’t even help with your baby brother!” Sarah shot back without missing a beat, “He’s not my brother. Why should I take care of him? If you want me to babysit, I’m charging for it!” After a while, we came back to cook dinner, only to find someone else at the door—Mrs. Ann Davis, the town’s notorious busybody. She was famous for matchmaking anyone and anything—she could probably even marry off two stray dogs. She tried asking Sarah a couple of questions, but when she realized Sarah was a tough nut to crack, she turned to me instead. “Emily, don’t you want a daddy?” I pointed at the framed picture of my dad hanging in the living room and said, confused, “I have a dad.” She gave me a smile and said, “Not that kind of daddy, sweetie. I mean one who can help your mom out and protect you from bullies.” I pointed at Sarah, who was washing rice in the kitchen. “No thanks, I’ve got a sister. She can do all that.”
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