My Parents Refused To Come To My Housewarming Party. So I Invited Someone Else To My $4M House…
My name is Everly Mitchell, and I was thirty years old when I finally understood that some people would never truly see me. By then, on paper, I had almost everything you were supposed to want.
I was an interior designer with a growing firm, a feature on HGTV, and a glass-and-stone villa looking out over the Atlantic. People used words like successful and inspiring when they talked about me. But there was a hole in me that success didn’t touch, something hollow and familiar that went all the way back to a little girl sitting at a kitchen table, holding up a ribbon no one cared about.
I grew up in a perfectly ordinary house in a perfectly ordinary suburb outside of Boston. White siding, blue shutters, a postage-stamp lawn with a maple tree that dropped sticky seeds all over the driveway. From the outside, we were the picture of a normal American family: Dad in his button-down shirts and weekend baseball caps, Mom with her casseroles and holiday decorations, two daughters spaced two years apart.
Me, the oldest. Madison, the youngest. From the time I could remember, Madison was the favorite.
It wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t just in my head. It was baked into every birthday, every holiday, every casual Tuesday night. When I was seven and Madison was five, I won second place in my school art contest.
I still remember the way my heart pounded as they called my name over the crackly intercom in the gym, the way the ribbon felt when the principal pinned it to my T‑shirt. I couldn’t wait to get home and show my parents. That same day, Madison learned to tie her shoes.
At dinner, I slid into my chair with the ribbon clutched in both hands. “Look, I won—”
“Show them, Mads,” Mom cut in, all bright and excited. Madison swung her feet up on Dad’s lap.
“Look, Daddy! I did it myself!”
He laughed like she’d just solved world peace. “Well, would you look at that.
Big girl now.” He took out his phone and started taking pictures of her sneakered feet, laces tied into messy bows. “Everly, what were you saying?” Mom asked absently, dishing mashed potatoes onto Madison’s plate. “Nothing,” I said, my throat tight.
Mom made Madison’s favorite dessert that night—warm brownies with ice cream—because “tying your shoes is a big milestone.” My ribbon went into a kitchen drawer under the batteries and stray rubber bands. A week later, it was bent in half. A month later, it was gone.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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