“prompt- alter a memory (III)“

“My daughters are the raises of sunshine that brighten my days,” my father would always say with an elongating ‘D’ sound and a proud smile splattering across his face. He wanted me and my sister to know we were loved even though we were his girls, not his boys, a fact that is brought up in both our birth stories.

“What emotion did your mom feel the most when she h
The recess after my first sex education lesson, where we learned about the essential functions of sex organs, was spent among the girls discussing the time we were in our mother’s wombs. The fact that we have no recollection of this time did not deter our belief that we built our traits there. Our logic wasn’t sound but concrete. We rehashed the stories we had heard, hoping to understand our blueprints. We conclude that our mom’s cravings have to be our favorite food, the age our moms had us will be the age we have our first kid, and our mom’s dominant emotion is the catalyst of our temperament.

I didn’t know what my mom’s domain emotion was. I pondered with the girls what it could been. One girl said boredom since I tend to be in everyone’s business; that made some laugh. Another girl said pride since I was always the first to finish the timetable but made the same mistakes. I clarified that I only made three mistakes, which is still an A. My rebuttal united the girls on the proud prediction. 

I headed home that day, determined to prove them wrong. Instead of the usual afternoon greeting, I greeted my mom with the question I could not answer. I settled next to my mother in the center coach while my dad decompressed from work, laying flat on the living room floor. I was sure she would say excitement about the anticipation of meeting me, which would explain why I go hard on my interest. I have seen every version of Boys over Flowers and have all the manga chapters. But because my sister failed to be a boy, my mom had additional pressure from the family to ensure I was my dad’s first son. So she carried me, full of stress and anticipation, waiting for my birth to set the family’s expectancies. My face fell on hearing another way my gender caused hindrance.

“We drop our foolish wants when we hold you,” my father added to the story after seeing my reinforced frown lines. He hopped up next to me and planted a kiss on my forehead.

“At least you came out as I thought you; you look like what my daughter would,” he added, tickling a smile out of me.

“Are you serious?” My sister appears without warning, bringing intense heat to our chattering and giggles.

Her words grabbed our eyes. I watch her tears form, and her lips tremble in a slow past beat. My parents froze in place while I was washed away by confusion.

“Wh… how can you always say that?” Her voice exposed her determination, but the goal remained unclear.

The room stood in silence, waiting for more clues to her eruption. But like how she entered, she left with the same abrupt force, leaving us with bated breath. I turned to my father’s face for guidance, but he tucked his head down, playing back his words to try to find where he could have hurt his child. I removed myself from his arms and followed my sister’s trail to our room.

**To be continued**