My Stepsister’s Secret
It never occurred to me that she needed help.
Tanya was late for dinner. Again. My stepmother Jessica and my father fidgeted in their seats as we sat in the swanky Italian restaurant where we ate every weekend. I kept taking surreptious glances at my watch, wondering why the hell my stepsister had to be late for every family function as if time mattered little in her sphere of life.
“That girl,” Jessica said, shaking her head. She placed a hand on my father’s, his own hand balled into a fist. “I’m sorry, Jack. She just has a mind of her own. I tried everything I could to get her to be a good daughter, but she just doesn’t listen.”
My father patted Jessica’s hand. “No worries, sweetheart. I understand you did the best you could with Tanya. I guess there are just some bad eggs out there. Can’t help it, you know?”
I wanted to roll my eyes at them, but what for? They weren’t wrong. Tanya had been a troublemaker ever since high school: she had ditched school so many times that she almost didn’t graduate. She had blamed it on anxiety, but she was such a liar that who could ever know for sure? Jessica had been a great stepmom to me, so it pissed me off that Tanya treated Jessica this way. What kind of daughter hated her own mother so much?
