After her funeral, the silence in our house was unbearable. My father and I ate our dinners quietly, clinging to each other like survivors of a shipwreck.
People at a funeral | Source: Pexels
Two years later, he remarried.
Her name was Helen. To outsiders, she was elegance personified — immaculate hair, pressed suits, a faint trace of expensive perfume that followed her everywhere. But to me? She was a wall.
I remember the first night she came into our home. She’d brought her three children: Lisa, Emily, and Jonathan. They were loud, confident, and territorial, like a pack of wolves assessing their new ground.
“This is Anna,” my father said proudly, resting a hand on my shoulder. “My daughter.”
Lisa, the oldest, looked me up and down, her lip curling into the kind of smirk that could slice skin. “She’s… quiet.”
“She’s shy,” Helen corrected quickly, with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Then she leaned toward me, her tone light but dismissive. “You’ll get along with my kids just fine if you try, won’t you?”
Woman talking to a young girl at a dinner table | Source: Pexels
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