“Rebecca, why can’t you just be easy like your sister?” That became my mother’s constant grating refrain throughout my childhood.

Easy meant compliant. Easy meant never questioning. Easy meant accepting that Stephanie deserved the last piece of cake, the new school clothes, and the unconditional affection I craved but never, ever received.

Money, you see, was always a tightly knotted rope around our necks. My father’s factory had been threatening layoffs for as long as I could remember, and my mother’s part-time pharmacy income barely covered groceries. By sixteen, I was working weekends at the local diner, handing most of my paycheck directly to my parents, while Stephanie enjoyed her weekends at the mall with friends.

“This is just how family works, Rebecca,” my mother would say, accepting my earnings as if it were her due. “We all have to make sacrifices.”

Somehow, those sacrifices always seemed to fall heaviest on my shoulders.