Facedown.
Back then, some desperate part of me still believed that if I made no trouble, one day they would choose me too.
They never did.
The worst moment came after a nine-month deployment. I returned thinner, darker from sun and salt, my hands cracked from work and cold. My mother looked at my calluses and sighed.
Then she took Serena’s soft manicured hand and said, “Some women are built for rooms where real decisions are made. Some are built for labor.”
Serena did not look up from her phone.
My father sat in his leather chair, rolling bourbon in his glass.
No one corrected her.
That was the Vale family rule: when Marjorie hurt Clara, everyone treated it like weather.
Rain thickened on the windshield as I drove toward base. I could still hear her voice.
“You are not half the woman your sister is.”
Maybe she was right.
