Chapter 5 - She’s Family. So Am I.
Three days later, my parents appeared at our apartment without warning.
Mom was dressed in a way that made me think she’d expected to come inside and stay awhile.
I opened the door.
“You have three minutes.”
They walked in anyway.
Mom started.
“Dalia is going through a transformative period.”
I looked at her.
“A what?”
“She’s changing. She’s reflecting. She knows she’s made mistakes she deeply regrets.”
“And the podcast?”
“That’s how she’s processing.”
Dad stepped in.
“She wants a relationship with you, Vera. She just doesn’t know how to ask.”
That sounded almost reasonable.
Which was exactly why I asked the next question.
“Did Dalia actually tell you she wants a relationship with me?”
Silence.
Mom looked away.
I felt something settle inside me.
“So she didn’t.”
“That’s not what we’re saying,” Dad replied.
“Then what are you saying?”
Mom finally admitted that Dalia had moved back home.
Temporarily.
And suddenly their visit made perfect sense.
They weren’t there because Dalia had changed.
They weren’t there because she’d apologized.
They weren’t even there because she’d asked them to repair things.
Dalia was living under their roof again.
Her chaos had moved back into their daily lives.
They wanted relief.
And they were hoping I would help provide it.
I looked at both of them.
“Have either of you ever actually told her what she did at my wedding was wrong?”
Neither answered.
Not one word.
I nodded.
“That’s what I thought.”
Mom started saying my name.
I stopped her.
“I’ve spent years absorbing the damage because everybody decided I could handle it. I’m done.”
“Vera—”
“No. You wanted to know why I’m cold? This is why. Every time Dalia breaks something, you ask me to understand why she threw it.”
Dad’s face tightened.
“She’s family.”
“So am I.”
That quieted the room.
I walked toward the door and opened it.
“You need to leave.”
Mom looked back at me from the hallway as if she expected me to change my mind before the elevator arrived.
I didn’t.
Dalia kept the podcast going for a few more episodes.
From what I heard secondhand, I became the emotionally unavailable sister.
The person who couldn’t accept Dalia’s growth.
But eventually the attention slowed.
The comments stopped arriving as quickly.
Sponsors disappeared.
The podcast sputtered out.
Micah and I rarely discussed it.
Instead, we booked a trip.
Somewhere far away.
Somewhere warm.
Somewhere nobody knew our family.
Two days before we left, I was standing with Micah buying luggage tags when my phone buzzed.
One message from Dalia.
A single fire emoji.
Nothing else.
I showed Micah.
He looked at it, then at me.
“Perfect,” he said. “Let it burn.”
May you like
I blocked her number.
Then we got on the plane.
