The Unwanted Girl

Summer 1995. My mother clutched the ultrasound report, trembling. “Another useless girl!”

My grandmother snatched it away. “The eldest is frail. She needs someone to help her.”

When my father tried to smother me with a quilt in the middle of the night, my grandmother kicked the door open. “What a sin!”

At 27 days old, I was wrapped in a threadbare coat and sent to the countryside.

I had no household registration and no name. The village children all called me “the extra one in the Lin family.”

When they brought me back at eleven, I became the family’s maid.

My father pointed at my mother. “This is your aunt. I’m your uncle.”

My older sister wore princess dresses, and my younger brother had mountains of toys.

My desk was a low stool in the kitchen.

I was the unwanted girl caught between my sister and brother.