The One We Don’t Talk About
At my family reunion, after 34 years of calling me “the overlooked one,” my aunt introduced me to a stranger as “the one we don’t talk about.” I only folded my napkin and stayed quiet—until the stranger reached into her blazer and pulled out a business card. The reunion was already loud when my aunt decided to make me small again. Paper plates bending under potato salad.
Kids running through the sprinkler. Music coming from a cheap speaker near the cooler. My mother stood by the dessert table like she was hosting a fundraiser instead of a family cookout.
And I was sitting at the kids’ table. Not because there were no chairs. Because my mother had written place cards for everyone else.
My sister Jolene had one in neat cursive. My brother Caleb had one, even though he was late. My aunt Patricia had one beside the good serving spoons.
Even Jolene’s husband had one. Mine was a blank name tag and a marker near the driveway. My Name Is Faith
My name is Faith Mercer, and by 34, I had become very good at one thing my family always mistook for weakness: staying composed.
For my entire childhood, my family had labels. Jolene was “the pretty one.” Caleb was “the smart one.” And I was “the overlooked one.”
They said it like weather. Like it was not cruel if everybody already knew.
Like a child could grow around a sentence if the adults smiled while saying it. I was six the first time I heard Aunt Patricia say it out loud. We were at a community potluck in June.
Jolene had a new dress my mother had sewn herself. I had Jolene’s yellow hand-me-down with a stain near the collar. Patricia cupped Jolene’s face and told a neighbor, “This one is going to break hearts.”
Then she looked at me and said, “That one got the Mercer nose.
Poor thing.”
My mother laughed. Not loudly. Just enough.
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