What are the downsides of being “the golden child” that no one talks about?

Healing and Finding Home

The next few days were a complete blur. The cops took our statements right there at the cabin, asking us a million questions while I held Lily’s hands so tight my knuckles turned white. She didn’t let go either. Not once.

Aunt Lisa stayed with us the whole time, jumping in whenever the questions got too intense or when one of us started crying. I kept expecting to feel relieved or happy or something, but mostly I just felt numb, like my brain couldn’t process that it was actually over, that my dad was really gone.

They took him straight to jail that night. The officers told us he was being charged with child endangerment, making criminal threats, and a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember now. One of the cops mentioned something about flight risk since he’d been planning to take Lily away.

When we finally got back to Aunt Lisa’s house, it was like 3:00 a.m. We were both too wired to sleep, so we just sat on her couch drinking hot chocolate while Aunt Lisa made a million phone calls.

I can’t believe you came for me.

I remember Lily looking at me with these huge eyes and saying. Like it was surprising or something, as if I would ever leave her behind.

The next morning, a social worker named Marissa came to talk to us. She had this super gentle voice and kept offering us snacks every five minutes. She explained that we wouldn’t be going back to our parents house, which was fine by me. I never wanted to set foot in that place again.

“What about our mom?” Lily asked, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. “Is she in trouble, too?”

Marissa got this careful look on her face.

“Your mother is currently in the hospital. She took some pills, but she’s going to be okay physically.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Part of me was still angry at her for letting everything happen, for choosing my dad over us every single time. But another part remembered how scared she always looked when he got mad, how she flinched when he raised his voice.

“Can Aunt Lisa be our guardian?” I asked, getting straight to the point.

“No way was I going through the foster system or whatever.”

“That’s what we’re working on,” Marissa said with a smile. “Your aunt has already started the paperwork.”

The next couple weeks were weird. We stayed with Aunt Lisa while all the legal stuff got sorted out. We had to go to the police station a few more times to answer questions.

We met with this lady prosecutor who kept calling us brave young women and promising my dad would pay for what he did. My mom got out of the hospital after a week. She called Aunt Lisa’s house a bunch of times, but I refused to talk to her. Lily did, though.

She’d take the phone into the guest room and close the door, and I’d hear her voice rising and falling, but couldn’t make out the words. She never told me what they talked about, and I didn’t ask. School was the worst. Everyone knew something had happened, but no one knew exactly what.

There were all these rumors flying around. Some people said my dad had tried to call us. Others said Lily and I had made everything up for attention. A few girls who used to be my friends stopped talking to me completely, like my family drama might be contagious or something.

But then this weird thing happened. People I barely knew started being super nice to me. This girl named Tanya, who I’d maybe spoken to twice before, started saving me a seat at lunch. The school counselor, Mr. Reeves, gave me a pass that let me skip class whenever I needed a break. My English teacher stopped calling on me when my hand wasn’t raised.

One day after gym, I found Lily crying in the bathroom. Some girls had been whispering about her, saying she was making it all up. I got so mad. I wanted to punch something.

They don’t know anything.

I told her, handing her some paper towels.

They weren’t there.

She wiped her eyes and gave me this little smile.

I know. It just sucks.

Yeah, I agreed. It really does.

The court stuff dragged on forever. My dad kept changing lawyers and trying to get the charges dropped. My mom hired her own lawyer and filed for divorce, which was probably the only smart thing she’d ever done.

Aunt Lisa got temporary guardianship of us both, which became permanent after a few months when my mom signed away her rights. I still remember the day we found out my dad was taking a plea deal. Aunt Lisa got the call while we were eating dinner.

She stepped into the kitchen to talk, but we could still hear her.

10 years. That’s it?

She was saying, her voice tight with anger after everything he did. When she came back to the table, she tried to act normal, but I could tell something was wrong.

“What is it?” I asked, she sighed, putting her fork down.

“Your father accepted a plea deal.” “He’ll serve 10 years with possibility of parole after seven.”

Lily’s face went white.

“7 years? That’s not long enough.”

“I know, sweetie,” Aunt Lisa said, reaching for her hand. But the prosecutor said, “This way you girls won’t have to testify in court, and he’ll have a permanent record. He’ll never be allowed near children again.”

I didn’t know how to feel. Part of me wanted him locked up forever, but another part was relieved we wouldn’t have to sit in a courtroom and tell a bunch of strangers all the horrible things he’d done.

“What about mom?” I asked.

She’s agreed to supervised visitation.

“If you girls want that,” Aunt Lisa said carefully.

“But it’s completely up to you.”

Lily looked at me and I could tell she wanted to say yes.

I shrugged. “You can if you want. I’m not ready.”

Life at Aunt Lisa’s house was so different from what we were used to. She had actual rules that made sense, like doing your homework before watching TV or texting if you were going to be late. But she never screamed or threatened us or made us feel like we were worthless.

She hung our artwork on the fridge and asked about our day and remember the names of our friends. The first time I got a B on a math test, I had a full-on panic attack. I was convinced she was going to freak out, maybe even send me back to my parents. Instead, she just asked if I needed help studying for the next one.

When I admitted I was struggling with algebra, she hired a tutor. Just like that. No drama, no punishment, no making me feel like I was stupid.

Lily started seeing a therapist named Dr. Chen twice a week. After a month, I decided to go, too.

It was weird at first, talking to a stranger about all the messed up stuff in my head, but it actually helped. Dr. Chen never made me feel crazy for being angry or sad or confused. She just listened and asked questions that made me think.

One day about six months after everything went down, Lily came into my room and flopped on my bed.

I saw mom today, she said, staring at the ceiling.

I looked up from my homework.

“How was it?” She shrugged.

“Weird.” She cried a lot. Said she was sorry.

“Do you believe her?” I asked.

Lily was quiet for a long time.

“I don’t know. Maybe she seems different without dad around. Less scared.”

I nodded, not knowing what to say. I still wasn’t ready to see our mom. Wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready. But I was glad Lily had the chance to make her own decision about it.

“You know what’s funny?” Lily said suddenly. “I used to be so jealous of you. All those years when they treated you like the golden child and me like garbage.

I used to lie in bed at night wishing I could be you. I put my pencil down, surprised.

Really?

I always felt guilty about it, like it was somehow my fault they liked me better. She turned to look at me.

It wasn’t your fault. None of it was. You were the only good thing in that house.

I felt my eyes getting hot with tears.

You were the reason I stayed as long as I did. I couldn’t leave you there alone.

She reached over and squeezed my hand.

I know. Thank you for that.

We didn’t say anything else. We didn’t need to. A year after moving in with Aunt Lisa, we officially changed our last name to hers. It was Lily’s idea and I was on board immediately. I didn’t want anything connecting me to my dad anymore.

The day the paperwork came through, Aunt Lisa took us out for ice cream to celebrate, and we took a bunch of silly selfies with our new IDs. That night, I had a nightmare about my dad. In the dream, he was out of jail somehow and standing at the foot of my bed. I woke up gasping, my heart racing.

Without thinking, I went to Lily’s room. She was awake, too, sitting up in bed with her reading light on.

“Bad dream?” she asked, scooting over to make room for me.

I nodded, climbing in beside her.

“You, too?”

“Yeah, Dr. Chen says they might never go away completely, but they’ll get less frequent.”

“Great,” I muttered. She laughed a little.

“I know, right? But hey, at least we’re not alone.”

And that was the thing. Through all the court dates and therapy sessions and nightmares and panic attacks, we had each other. We always had.

Last week was my high school graduation. Aunt Lisa threw this huge party for me with balloons and a cake and everything. A bunch of my friends came and even my mom was there. We’re not close or anything, but we’re civil now. She’s been sober for almost two years and has a job at a department store.

She brought me a gift card and an awkward hug. Lily is going to be a senior next year. She’s already looking at colleges, talking about studying psychology or social work. She wants to help kids like us.

She says, “I’m taking a gap year to figure out what I want to do. Aunt Lisa says there’s no rush, that I have my whole life ahead of me. Sometimes I think about that Christmas when I was nine.

When I first realized something was wrong with our family, how I gave Lily my chemistry set when our parents weren’t looking. How we played with it in secret, mixing the harmless chemicals and watching them change colors. I never could have imagined then where we’d end up, that we’d escape, that we’d be okay.

Yesterday, Lily and I were helping Aunt Lisa plant flowers in her garden. The sun was out and we were all sweaty and covered in dirt.

Lily was telling some story about her friend Dakota’s disastrous date, and Aunt Lisa was laughing so hard she snorted, which made us laugh even harder. And I had this moment where I just stopped and looked at them.

At my sister and my aunt, at my family, my real family, and I thought, “We made it.