Elva was the
youngest of eleven sisters: Charlene, Colleen, Eileen, Francine, Irene, Janine,
Kathleen, Maxine, Pauline and Nadine. She loved them (obviously), but why did
she have to be born last? By the time she came around, their parents weren’t
interested in buying an eleventh set of clothes, toys, books. Meaning Elva had
to do with her sisters’ hand-me-downs; she chafed against the well-worn fabric that
had long gone out of fashion and didn’t even fit her properly. She saw the
popular girls, the cool girls, with the latest gear and her heart ached as she
hid the fraying edges of her sleeve. She hated school, hated sitting alone at
lunch.
Not that
being at home was much better.
‘Time to
start thinking about college – you’re in the eleventh grade now,’ Mom had
announced, as though Elva wasn’t already aware of this fact, ‘You can’t stay at
that 7/11 forever’.
But Elva liked
the 7/11, liked the night shift she worked with Pauline and Nadine; she enjoyed
meeting up and hearing their latest gossip. In those few hours she felt
accepted, felt like everyone else. She was closer to her sisters there, under
the fluorescent lights, than she had ever been. However, when the chat turned
to college she quietened, despondency flooding her.
The truth
was, she didn’t know what to study. Everyone else had gone on to great things: medicine,
law, teaching. Colleen had her own business, Irene gained a PHD. But Elva…she
wasn’t good at anything. At all.
She locked
herself in the staff toilet and began to cry. The sadness, the worry was all
too much, too too much… she didn’t know what to do. Someone banged on the door.
‘Elva, you
OK? What’s wrong?’
Everything,
she thought, took a
deep breath and called:
‘Nothing,
I’m fine’.
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