Their Obedient Youngest Daughter Stopped Coming Home Chapter 09
“Welcome back. Today we’re joined by Ellis Voss, a student at Stanton University and the author of the nonfiction series Echoes.”
On the day of the recording, I wore a plain light blue button-down.
Romy told me I should at least put on some makeup.
I told her I wasn’t entering a beauty pageant.
The host was a woman in her forties.
Her voice was calm. Her questions came without pressure.
We started by talking about my writing and my work with the campus paper. It was easy enough.
About fifteen minutes in, she turned a page in her notes and looked up.
“Of all the stories in Echoes, The Fifth Chair has touched readers the most.”
“A lot of people said it felt like you were telling their own story.”
“I hope you don’t mind me asking—is there some of your own life in that essay?”
The camera moved in. I could feel it.
“A little.”
“Would you like to tell us about it?”
I thought for a moment.
—
“I grew up in a pretty ordinary family. I had an older sister who was exceptional—the kind of child everyone noticed. I wasn’t.”
“You keep using the word ‘noticed.’ What did that look like for you?”
“For example, I was never in the family portrait.”
“At our graduation party, the congratulatory sign only had my sister’s name.”
“And every gift our relatives gave me ended up going to her instead.”
The studio fell silent.
The host slowly set her notes aside.
“How did those things make you feel at the time?”
“At first, they hurt. Then I got used to them. And eventually I stopped feeling much of anything.”
“It wasn’t acceptance—the feeling itself just… wore away.”
“It’s like leaving your hand in cold water. At first it’s freezing, and then eventually it just goes numb.”
“Is it still numb now?”
I looked straight into the camera.
“No. Because I finally took my hand out.”
The interview aired on a Thursday night.
I didn’t watch it. Romy watched it in the living room.
—
Halfway through, she burst into my room, eyes red.
“Everything you said—it made me want to punch someone.”
“Who?”
“Your mom.”
I laughed. “Don’t. That’s illegal.”
She huffed and dropped onto my bed.
Then she muttered, “You deserve to be liked, you know that?”
I smiled. I didn’t answer.
Three days after the broadcast, my inbox exploded.
Most were from strangers—encouragement, understanding, people telling me they finally felt seen.
But one message stood out.
It came from an account with no profile picture, no username—just one line.
[I really didn’t know about the gifts.]
It was Blythe.
I stared at the message for a long time. I never replied.
Five days later, another message arrived.
This one wasn’t from Blythe. It was Mom.
Not a social media message—a text.
—
She’d gotten my new number somehow after Blythe found me.
[I watched the interview. Some of the things you talked about, I remember. Some… I honestly don’t.]
[But whether I remember them or not, I was wrong. Whenever you’re ready to see me, I’ll be waiting.]
I read the message once. Then again.
Then I locked my phone.
I didn’t answer. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I just didn’t know what to say.
For eighteen years, I’d waited for her to say something like that on her own.
Now she finally had. It was simply too late.
I’d already learned how to stop waiting.
A week later, Dad called.
I hesitated for a few seconds, then answered.
A long time of silence passed.
When he finally spoke, I heard a voice I’d never heard before.
It wasn’t ordering me around, brushing me off, or speaking right past me like I wasn’t there.
It sounded like something had been shattered and painfully put back together.
—
“Ellis.” He just said my name, then stopped.
“Your mom made me watch the interview.”
“What you said… the graduation party, the gifts, the family photo. I…” His voice broke.
I couldn’t tell if it was a sigh or something more.
“Dad. Do you know now? That I got into Stanton?”
Silence. A long one.
“I know now.”
“I opened my acceptance letter myself. That August. The same day you took Blythe to Kingsport.”
“You had me carry her luggage downstairs, then told me to lock up, close the windows, and turn off the gas.”
“Then the three of you left for the airport. I got on a train ticket by myself and went to Riverton.”
This time, I heard something. Quiet. Faint.
The sound of a man in his fifties trying not to cry.
“I’m sorry.”
It was the first time in my life my father had ever apologized to me.
Then he said it again. “I’m sorry.”
I stood by the window with my phone in my hand.
—
Outside, the lights of Riverton stretched across the night.
They were beautiful.
“Dad. I don’t need an apology. I’ve already worked through those years on my own.”
“What do you need, then?”
“I need you to remember one thing.”
“I’m not ‘the younger one.’ I’m not ‘the obedient one.’ I’m not ‘the easy one.’ I’m Ellis.”
On the other end of the line, he cried.
Not out loud, but I could hear his breathing shake.
“I’ll remember.”
I ended the call.
I stood at the window for a long time.
I didn’t cry. My eyes hurt from being so dry. Not a single tear fell.
It wasn’t strength.
My tear ducts, like my heart, had weathered such a long drought they’d forgotten how to let anything flow.
That night, I dreamed about Christmas Eve when I was five.
Broken pieces of a plate lay scattered across the floor.
Blythe crouched beside me.
—
“Don’t cry, sweetie. I’m here.”
In the dream, I didn’t cry.
I looked down at the broken pieces, then stood up and went to get the broom myself.