“Don’t touch my doll!” shrieked Amelia, snatching the porcelain beauty with flaxen curls from her elder sister’s grasp. “Mum! Sophie’s at my toys again!”
“Honestly, such a greedy-guts!” snapped eight-year-old Sophie, though she released her grip. “Who died and made her princess?”
“Girls, must you shriek at the crack of dawn?” Mrs. Davies bustled from the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel. “Sophie, do leave your sister alone. You’ve toys enough.”
“Mine are all tatty old things, whilst hers are brand new!” protested Sophie hotly. “It’s not fair!”
“Because I’m the youngest,” Amelia announced smugly, clutching her doll tight. “Mum said so.”
Sophie clenched her teeth, silent. Mum *had* said that. And Gran. And Auntie Claire. Everyone constantly cooed: “Little Amelia needs our care,” “Poorly Amelia must be cherished,” “Sweet Amelia is such a dear.”
And Sophie? Sophie was strong, Sophie was big, Sophie must understand. Always yielding, always comprehending.
“Time for breakfast,” sighed their mother. “Call your sister.”
School offered Sophie a brief escape from domestic woes, yet Amelia’s ghost haunted the corridors. Miss Harrison often inquired after “dear Amelia,” was she poorly, when would she start Reception?
“And you, Sophie,” she once asked after class, “helping your little sister prepare for school?”
“I am,” lied Sophie.
In truth, she dreaded those sessions. Amelia whinged, refused her letters, complained of tiredness. Mum would invariably say, “Must you badger her? Can’t you see she’s worn out?”
“Amelia, the ‘A’ isn’t written like *that*!” Sophie fumed, erasing a crooked squiggle. “Watch! Like this!”
“Don’t wanna!” snivelled her sister. “My hand aches!”
“Aches nothing! You’re just bone-idle!”
“Mum! Sophie’s calling me names!” Amelia would screech instantly.
Naturally, Mum scolded Sophie. Always Sophie.
When Amelia started school, Sophie hoped she’d finally grasp the grind of lessons, striving, scraping passes. But no. Amelia sailed through, effortlessly earning top marks, adored by teachers.
“Your sister’s frightfully clever!” Sophie’s form tutor marvelled. “Our shining scholar! You could learn a thing or two about study from her.”
Sophie stood silent, fists clenched. What to say? That Amelia wasn’t clever, merely lucky? That everything fell into her lap? While Sophie toiled till midnight for a bare pass?
Home was no sanctuary. Amelia bloomed into a true beauty – fair-haired, blue-eyed, skin like porcelain. Neighbours sighed, “Oh, what a porcelain cherub!”
Sophie? Sophie was ordinary. Not ugly, not a beauty – middling girl with chestnut hair and grey eyes. One of millions.
“Our Amelia will be an actress,” Mum dreamily mused, brushing her daughter’s hair. “Or a fashion model. Look at her! Why, it’s a sin *not* to use such looks!”
Sophie pretended deafness, each word a stiletto to the heart. So, was it no sin *not* to use *her* looks? Did that mean she’d amount to nothing?
“I’ll be a doctor,” she muttered once.
“A doctor?” Mum sounded surprised. “Well, I suppose, *if* you manage it. Good grades needed.”
“*If* you manage it.” Not “You’ll do it,” or “Course you can,” but “*if*.” As if Mum barely believed her possible.
Meanwhile, Amelia flourished. In secondary, lads flocked. She flirted, batted eyelashes, collected gifts and bouquets. Sophie watched, choked with bitterness and envy.
“Look, earrings from Andrew!” Amelia chattered, twirling before the mirror. “Says they match my eyes!”
“Lovely,” Sophie forced through gritted teeth.
She too craved gifts, compliments. But who’d notice the little grey mouse beside such radiant dazzle?
“Sophy, why the long face?” Amelia asked, noticing her sister’s mood. “Fancy some earrings too?”
“Don’t need them,” Sophie cut her off.
No hand-me-down gratitude. No pity. She yearned to be seen, valued, loved for herself. But where to find that soul?
After college, Amelia entered drama school. Mum was in seventh heaven.
“I *knew* you’d be an actress!” she glowed. “Such gifts! Such looks! Bound for stardom!”
Sophie meanwhile gnawed the granite of medical training. Brutal work. Anatomy, physiology, chemistry – endless cramming and strain. But she endured. A doctor, maybe no shining star like her sister, yet sorely needed.
“How’s Uni?” Mum would ask, though her eyes betrayed deep care only for Amelia’s theatrical triumphs.
“Alright,” Sophie clipped.
“Amelia phoned! They gave her the lead in the year’s play! Imagine! First year – and straight to lead!”
Yes, Sophie imagined. Always first. Always.
Years rolled. Amelia became an actress, albeit middling. Treading provincial boards, occasional TV bits. Mum still swelled with pride: her daughter, an actress! Sophie became a GP, worked an NHS surgery, healed people. Mum rarely seemed awed.
“Amelia’s in another serial,” she’d tell her cronies. “On telly! And Sophie… well, Sophie works at the hospital.”
Sophie heard, silent. What to say? That her work mattered just as much? That she saved lives, not merely entertained? Who cared?
Of course, Amelia married first. A handsome actor from her company. A lavish do, heaps of guests, cameras flashing. Mum shimmered with joy, telling all what a smashing son-in-law, what a beautiful couple.
“And you, Sophie,” aunts would probe, “hitched any time? Nigh on thirty, still flying solo.”
Sophie shrugged. Her romantic life remained barren. No time? Wrong chaps? Perhaps she’d simply unlearned belief in her appeal, crushed beneath her sister’s blinding glow.
Amelia soon had a daughter. Fair and sweet, her tiny twin. Mum lost her mind with joy.
“My grandchild! Mine!” she warbled, scarcely releasing the babe. “Breathtaking! Spitting image of her mum!”
Sophie gazed at her niece, chilled: would *her* daughters (if any) also dwell in this little princess’s shadow?
But life deals surprising hands. Amelia’s marriage lasted three years. The actor proved beautiful but feather-brained. Fled with a fresh-faced student, leaving wife and child.
“Can’t fathom it,” wept Mum. “Such glorious pair! Such talents!”
Amelia sobbed, cursed herself a fool, a failure. The stage had to go – the tot demanded attention, acting wages wouldn’t stretch.
“What now?” she wailed. “Where to work? Stagecraft’s all I know!”
Sophie listened, thinking: there it was. Life’s true face. Beauty, flair, acclaim – mere soap bubbles. What endured? What lay *within*, beyond the glitter?
“Take courses,” Sophie advised. “Train as bookkeeper or office manager. Proper work, proper pay.”
“*Courses*?” Amelia recoiled. “I’m an actress!”
“*Were* an actress,” Sophie stated flatly. “Now’s a skint single mum.”
Amelia seethed but had little choice. Took courses, trained, found work as a bookkeeper. Dull, grey drudgery, nothing like her dreams. Yet the pay was decent, kept things afloat.
Sophie meanwhile climbed the ladder. Became surgery lead, then deputy practice manager. Good pay, vital work, colleagues respected her. Still, romance eluded her.
“Perhaps you’re too picky?” Amelia ventured cautiously once. “Maybe expect less?”
“Maybe,” Sophie agreed.
Inwardly, she knew: not pickiness. She’d never learned to love *herself*, trust her worth.
The next morning, Erica awoke with the lingering warmth of Claire’s rare olive branch, a fragile truce blooming where only thorns had grown, like frost forming delicate lace on the windowpane of their shared history.
The Sister I Grew Up Resenting
