Susan
I’ll never go in there again, Susan said to herself. She was angry. She didn’t like to have others determine what she would and would not do. That was not who she was: independent from the time she was a child and competitive since then too. But she kept these feelings inside and unexpressed. She hadn’t shown that side of her since childhood. Six-year-old Susan resented her little brother who seemed to get all her parents’ attention from the day they brought him home from the hospital. She would have none of that and figured out how to gain her parents’ attention: by telling them she felt like she wasn’t their real daughter. Because their real daughter had died, she’d whine, they adopted Susan only to quell their grief. I’m just like a dog or a cat to you, she’d tell them. Her lamentation always worked. Oh honey, her mother would say practically in tears, how could you think that? We love you so much, you two children are all we ever wanted. Still, she never truly believed them. They were hiding something from her, she felt. Gradually she hid her feelings from them, and from everyone else.
Her parents had died six years ago. Their car had veered off a country road, the ground slick from rain turned to ice, hit a weakened guard rail, and rolled down the ravine. She received the news the following day. By then it was too late.
Read Episode 11
