Their Obedient Youngest Daughter Stopped Coming Home Chapter 04
“Ellis, have you booked your ticket home for break yet?”
On the last day of finals, Mom called.
It was the first time she’d called me in ages.
“Not yet.”
“What do you mean, not yet? I booked Blythe’s ticket last week. Can’t you be a little more on top of things?”
I stood in the hallway outside my classroom, my phone pressed to my ear as cold air drifted through the windows.
“I’m not coming home.”
There was a pause.
“What do you mean you’re not coming home? You’re skipping Christmas?”
“I’ve got a research project. My professor wants me to stay on campus.”
There was no research project. And no professor even knew who I was.
“What project is more important than Christmas? Blythe’s coming home. The whole family’s getting together.”
I pressed my lips together, laughing bitterly to myself.
If I wasn’t there, would anyone even notice?
“The deadline’s coming up. It counts toward my credits.”
Mom sighed. That familiar impatience crept into her voice.
“You’ve always been like this, making decisions without talking to us first.”
“Fine. Do whatever you want. Just don’t expect Christmas dinner.”
Don’t expect it? As if I’d been looking forward to it.
“Okay.”
“Blythe asked if you wanted her to bring you anything back from Kingsport.”
“No.”
“All right. Bye.”
The call ended.
One minute and forty-two seconds. Thirty of them had been about Blythe’s ticket.
By break, most of campus had emptied out. Three of my roommates went home.
Only I remained, along with a senior who was staying to prepare for graduate school applications.
She spent every day in the study rooms.
The dorm was almost always mine alone.
It was unusually quiet. I liked it.
No comparisons. No neglect. None of the invisible distance that made it hard to breathe.
On Christmas Eve, the family group chat exploded again.
Mom posted pictures of the Christmas dinner spread.
Roast chicken, glazed ham, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, apple pie—all of Blythe’s favorites.
Dad had even made his signature pot roast.
Blythe uploaded a selfie with a raised glass.
[Home feels so good.]
Dad rarely spoke in the chat. Tonight he did.
[The whole family’s together. Merry Christmas.]
The whole family. A selfie with three people. Not a single place for me.
I sat alone in the empty dorm.
Dinner was a bowl of frozen ravioli.
They’d been overcooked until the wrappers split apart. The filling floated in the broth.
My phone kept vibrating. Messages flew through the group chat.
[Come on, let’s get another picture of Blythe. I want to post it.]
[Glenn, come over here. Let’s get one with just the three of us.]
The three of us.
When Mom said it, she probably didn’t even realize she’d counted.
Dad. Mom. Blythe. Three people.
Whether it had just slipped out, or whether she’d finally said what she’d always believed—it didn’t matter anymore.
I silenced my phone and slid it beneath my pillow.
That night, an occasional burst of fireworks echoed across campus.
The city in the distance celebrated, but the only sound near my dorm was water dripping through old pipes.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Thinking.
I remembered a Christmas Eve from years ago.
I was five. Blythe was seven.
She stood in the living room reciting poems while the relatives applauded.
I came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of mac, caught my foot on the threshold, and the plate shattered.
Mom yelled at me in front of everyone.
Blythe ran over and crouched beside me, helping me pick up the broken pieces.
“Don’t cry, sweetie. I’m here.”
It was the purest kindness I could remember receiving from her.
What happened after that?
She kept shining brighter. Our parents’ favoritism became so ordinary that no one questioned it.
She was lifted higher and higher until everyone revolved around her.
She never meant to overlook me.
She just never realized that when you’re standing in the spotlight, you can’t see what’s left in the dark.
Christmas morning, Blythe sent me a private message.
[Merry Christmas, Ellis! Are you doing okay on campus? Mom made so much food. I wish we could send some to you.]
I read it once, then replied with few words.
[Merry Christmas.]
A few days later, my phone rang again. The number wasn’t saved.
It was Aunt Margo.
“Ellis, your mom said you didn’t come home for Christmas. Busy with school?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, honey, spending Christmas all alone… that’s just awful.”
She sounded sympathetic. But only long enough to lead into what she really wanted to say.
“Still, Blythe’s doing incredible. Your mom posts about her every day. I see it all.”
“You keep working hard too. Don’t fall too far behind Blythe.”
Don’t fall too far behind.
In her eyes, the distance between Stanton and Linden was still a gap I needed to close.
“Thanks, Aunt Margo.”
“Of course, sweetie.”
“Oh, by the way. At your graduation party, I gave you a thousand dollars. You got it, right?”
My heart skipped. “What thousand dollars?”
“The one for you—your graduation gift. I handed it to you myself. Your mom never gave it to you?”
The gift log flashed through my mind. Everything was supposed to go to Blythe.
“Yeah… she did. I got it.”
“Good. That’s good.”
After the call ended, I sat without moving.
A thousand dollars from Aunt Margo. The cash gift from Uncle Ray.
And however many other relatives had given me gifts that day.
Everything was supposed to go to Blythe.
I took a slow breath and opened my contacts.
Dad. I deleted the number.
Mom. Gone.
Then I stopped on Blythe’s name.
My thumb hovered over the screen for a few long seconds.
I remembered that Christmas Eve when I was five.
She’d crouched beside the broken dishes and whispered, “Don’t cry. I’m here.”
Finally, I deleted it.
I left the family group chat. Turned off social media. One thing after another.
When I was done, my contact list was empty. It was as if everyone I’d ever cared about had just disappeared.
I set the phone down.
The dorm was silent.
Outside, a firework bloomed across the night sky. Huge. Brilliant. It wasn’t for me.
As of today, I didn’t have a family anymore.
Or maybe—as of today, I finally stopped pretending I did.
—
Twelve hundred miles away, back home, Mom opened the family group chat.
She wanted to tag Ellis and show her the pictures from today’s family gathering.
Instead, she froze.
The group had gone from four members to three.
She opened Ellis’s profile and tried to called her.
The call kept ringing, but no one picked up.
After a while, two cold words appeared on the screen:
[Call failed].
Mom stared at the screen, motionless.