“Well, yes. Or a taxi, if you prefer. You’ve already been discharged, so clearly you’re fine.”

Fine.

The night before, I had been in the emergency room, curled in pain, terrified it was my appendix. They caught it early, but I still needed surgery. I still had stitches. I still held a bag of medication in my lap.

And my parents were at the mall buying decorations.

“Mom,” I said carefully, “I just had surgery.”

“And Tessa only turns twenty-six once,” she snapped. “Don’t make this about you.”

There it was.

The unspoken rule of my entire life.

Not when Tessa missed my graduation. Not when my parents used money meant for me to fund her engagement party. Not when I drove myself to urgent care with an infection because my mother was helping her shop.

Every family has patterns.

Ours was carved deep.

My father took the phone. “Call a taxi, Maren. Don’t turn this into a scene.”

A scene.

I hung up quietly.

Not out of anger—but because I knew if I stayed on the line, I would cry.

So I called a taxi.

The driver asked if I was okay.

I said yes.

Because women like me are taught to say that—even when we’re not.

At home, I locked the door, took my medication, and slowly lowered myself onto the couch. Then I stared at the ceiling for a long time.

And then I called the bank.

My life insurance policy had one beneficiary.

My sister.

Not anymore.

Changing that wasn’t impulsive.

It was the final step in something I had ignored for years.

The policy had been set up six years earlier when I bought my townhouse. My parents had insisted I name Tessa—“because she’s family.”

Back then, I believed that meant fairness.

It didn’t.

Tessa was three years younger—charming when she needed something, helpless when it worked better. If she failed, someone else was blamed. If she overspent, we were expected to fix it.