Watching my furious mother, I had to laugh.

I was dead. How was I supposed to talk to her on the phone?

There was a long silence on the other end before Lisa’s voice came through, slow and heavy. “Sharon… Anna’s not with me. She’s gone.”

My mother didn’t seem to believe her, shouting into the phone, “Hah! This is the girl who fought for every last nutrient in my womb just to survive. How could she be dead? Don’t lie to me just to protect her. I know you two have always been close.”

The voice on the other end faltered, then continued. “Sharon, when you moved that slab to get Chloe out… Anna died. She couldn’t get out in time. The rubble you loosened shifted, and it buried her…”

The phone slipped from my mother’s grasp, hitting the floor with a loud crack. Her eyes were empty, vacant.

After a long moment, she started muttering to herself, “No, that’s not possible. She was buried right next to Chloe. I moved the slab off of both of them. She can’t be dead. That damn kid is probably just off somewhere playing.”

“That’s right. She was always like that, always wandering off. She never came straight home from school. She must be off playing somewhere.”

Oh, Mom.

My dear mother.

The reason I never came straight home from school was because Chloe and her friends would corner me on the way and bully me.

A voice crackled from the phone on the floor.

“Sharon, Anna is dead. We evacuated the site three days ago. Where would a little girl go all by herself? Stop lying to yourself…”

My mother scrambled to pick up the phone, screaming into it like a madwoman, “You’re both in on it! You and Anna are trying to trick me! Tell me where she is! Say something!”

“Sigh.” Lisa let out a heavy sigh. “I showed you the list of the confirmed dead the day we evacuated. If you don’t believe me, go look at the official records yourself. See if Anna’s name is on it.”

The line went dead. The only sound in the room was the frantic, disordered pacing of my mother’s footsteps.

Mom had been in the room for so long that Dad came to see what was wrong.

“What’s taking so long? Chloe’s friends are still here. We need to be good hosts, we can’t let Chloe lose face.”

My mother’s eyes suddenly lit up, like a drowning person spotting a piece of driftwood. She grabbed my father’s arm, her voice urgent. “Lisa said Anna’s dead. Do you think… do you think she’s really dead?”

My father’s tone was dismissive. “Her? Die? She’s too tough for that. She was practically trying to kill Chloe before they were even born. Even if we all died, she’d find a way to survive.”

“Right. She’s tough. She can’t be dead. And besides, she’s so cold-hearted, it’s probably for the best if she is.”

My mother repeated it over and over, as if she were trying to convince herself—I wasn’t dead.

“Mom! Dad! What are you guys doing? My friends are about to leave!”

Chloe’s shout echoed from the living room, and just like that, the matter of my death was tossed aside. They went right back to tending to Chloe.

I always knew they favored my sister.

But I never imagined that I couldn’t compete with her when I was alive, and I still couldn’t compete with her now that I was dead. How pathetic is that?

I never thought that in their eyes, my only good quality was being “tough.”

Maybe I should be grateful. At least they remembered one thing about me.

But they were my own mother and father.

They remembered that Chloe liked fish, that she loved puppies, and that she adored dresses with flowers on them.

The only thing they remembered about me was that I was tough.

And because that’s all they ever remembered, I never received a single ounce of their love. I lived ten miserable years.

And even in death, they still don’t love me.

A wave of bitter cold washed over me from the depths of my being. Even as a soul with no body, I felt chilled to the bone.

The wind began to howl, rattling the windowpanes with a screeching sound, as if it was screaming out the injustice for me.

The night grew quiet, but the light in my parents’ bedroom stayed on.

My mother’s brow was deeply furrowed. “Honey,” she said, “let’s go back to the disaster site tomorrow. I just… I’m still a little worried.”

“Go back for what?” my father said, his voice laced with annoyance. “If she’s dead, she’s dead. Good riddance. It’s one less thing for us to worry about.”