**Diary Entry**
I’ve known for years: in families with more than one child, there’s almost always a *favourite*—and the one who feels invisible. The beloved is forgiven everything, coddled, protected. The other? Blamed for every misfortune. That’s how it was in my family.
Mum adored my younger brother, Alfie. Me? I was the mistake. Once, in an argument, she spat at me, *If it weren’t for you, I’d never have divorced your father.* Those words burrowed into me, impossible to forget, even now. I didn’t ask to be born. I wasn’t to blame for existing. But she seemed to think otherwise.
After the divorce, she packed me off to live with my father’s parents. I was seven. Suddenly, I was in a strange house, without her. Nan and Grandad were kind—they became my real family. Meanwhile, Mum poured everything into Alfie. She fussed over him, bailed him out of trouble, even when he was grown and tangled in shady deals. She paid his debts, smoothed things over with the police, even sold her four-bedroom house in Kensington to buy him a flat. I only found out through a friend. Not a thought for me. She gave him everything: love, money, years of her life. And me? As if I’d never existed.
I built a life far from them—married, raised a daughter, now a grandmother myself. Our girl lives in the flat my grandparents left me. We’re happy. No debts, no drama. Mum and I barely spoke. Why would we? We were strangers.
Then everything changed.
Mum broke her hip. The hospital said she needed surgery—private, of course. And who paid? Me. *Me.* Because, despite everything, she’s still my mother. I couldn’t bear to see her suffer.
But after the operation, the reality sank in: she’d need months of care. Someone to bathe her, cook, take her to appointments. And suddenly, Alfie was ringing me daily, pressuring: *You’re her daughter. It’s your duty.*
I refused.
What followed was ugly. Both of them—Mum, Alfie—started in on me. Old wounds ripped open, every imagined slight flung in my face. *I gave you life!* she cried. I wanted to ask: *What life?* The one where you handed me off and forgot me? All the love, the care—it went one way. To Alfie.
So why remember me now? Where was I all those years?
I didn’t hold back. *You made your choice, Mum. You bet everything on one child, discarded the other. Now it’s time to reap what you sowed. Your golden boy’s a grown man. Let him step up. I’m not that little girl you could guilt into obedience. I owe you nothing.*
They called me heartless, cruel, ungrateful. But I felt nothing—just hollow bitterness. Bitter for the family we might’ve been.
Now, Mum’s in a care home. Alfie visits when it suits him. And me? I live my life. Sometimes I dream of Nan—the one who held me, wiped my tears, read me stories. *She* was my mother.
Let them say I’m resentful. It’s true. I’m no saint. But I won’t give myself to people who threw me away.
