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All through his life my father believed he was cursed

This belief began with his nosis when he was ten Dad made a promise to God that he’d join the priesthood if He saved his mother from the vicious disease She went into remission, and Dad’s fate was sealed However, when he was sixteen, he met my mother and his promise fell by the wayside The two of them were head-over-heels in love, and a year later Manant withchildbirth

Then, his ht

Both deaths broke Dad’s heart, and he swore it was God’s punish a priest Over the course of the next couple years, the few fa him alone in the world with a child to raise and protect It was just the two of us for a long tiained a step

The tolerance turned to resento, he lost his life in a collision with a drunk driver, leaving h I didn’t hold out hope for a fairy godmother

I did, however, have a wicked stepmother

“My brother is co to visit,” Vee said as she sat by the weathered kitchen table, sarette in a holder like a red-headed Cruella de Vil “You’ll need to air out one of the guest bedrooms and make it up for him”

I was stunned by what she’d just said “You have a brother?”

She pursed her lips before exhaling a pluer brother Sylvia had hi time”

Sylvia was Vee’s h she always called her by her first name Never Mam or Mammy, and not even the more formal Mother It was a little cold and distant if you asked me, but that was Vee for you A total ice queen I felt bad for Sylvia as left to live with such an uncaring, cruel daughter

Vee treated irl at the best of ti to be forever In a few months, I’d finish school and finally be able to break out from under her tyranny

“What’s his na sure to not look her directly in the eye Quite like a wild animal, she sometimes saw that as a threat I pulled some tinned soup, a bread roll and a banana from the cupboard and set to work on my dinner I kept a stash of chocolate bars hidden under my mattress,too , or food in general I rarely saw her eat anything aside from the olives she sometimes put in her martinis, so I usually had to fend for myself

“What makes you think I’m in a mood to answer your questions today, Estella?” she asked with cutting bluntness

“Sorry,” Ithe soup into a pot to heat up on the stove Some days I wished for a ht ehere was stuck in a previous century, dusty and old That hat you got when you lived in a big, creaky, creepy old Victorian house on the coast

Vee continued sreen eyes

“Your uniforo to Foley’s and have them take it out for you on the weekend”

“M reen uniform with the Loreto Convent crest over my left breast The crest was made up of the cross, an emblem of salvation, the heart of Jesus, to symbolize his love for us, the pierced heart of Mary, to depict her courage in guiding us, and lastly the anchor, a sye us to trust in God

Vee knew good and well I had no ave irl in the world, but that wasn’t the reasonthe same uniform for the last four years

A girl didn’t have the sahteen that she’d had at fourteen It embarrassed me because my appearance was so opposite to Vee’s Her chest was flat, her hips narrow She had the body of a catwalk model