At the little grocery store not far from our house, the owners’ children sometimes tended the shop. My mother called them “the sweetest children in the world.”
That struck me as incredibly unfair, because they already had two loving parents. I resented them for it—them, not her.
One day, my brother and I asked her whom she preferred, them or us. We weren’t being bratty or jealous; it was a question from kids who received no cuddles, no compliments, no validation. We needed to know.
She never gave any answer beyond, “It’s not the same thing.” Said in an annoyed tone, as if she were clumsily trying to hide something.
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