My name is Sienna Brennan, I’m thirty-two years old, and six months ago my parents sued me for six hundred eighty-two thousand dollars for a house I never agreed to buy. They’d purchased my sister Melody a four-bedroom suburban home and secretly put my name on the mortgage as co-signer without my knowledge or consent. I found out through a collections letter.
When I called my mother, hands shaking, demanding an explanation, she said five words that still echo in my head: “We decided you should pay.”
When I refused, they didn’t apologize. They took me to court. Melody testified against me, claiming I’d made a verbal promise at Christmas dinner two years ago.
But there was something they didn’t know, something I’d kept in a folder for years, waiting for the day I’d need proof that I wasn’t crazy. Growing up, there were two daughters in the Brennan house, and everyone knew which one mattered more. Melody was the golden child—warm, charming, always knowing the right thing to say at family dinners.
She laughed at Dad’s jokes, helped Mom in the kitchen without being asked, and somehow made every relative feel like their favorite person. Teachers adored her. Neighbors waved when she walked by.
She was the kind of daughter parents brag about at church. And then there was me. Quiet.
Focused. I preferred numbers to small talk, spreadsheets to gossip. While Melody collected compliments, I collected A’s—not because I craved approval, but because precision made sense to me in a way people never did.
In our house, Melody was the story people told out loud. I was the footnote. Dad used to say it like it was clever observation: “Melody got the charm, Sienna got the brains.” It sounded like a compliment until you lived inside it.
Charm got you forgiven. Brains got you used. When I passed my CPA exam at twenty-six, I called home expecting congratulations.
My father’s response came through the receiver like a shrug: “So when are you getting married like your sister?”
Melody had married Derek at twenty-four, had two kids by twenty-eight. My parents helped them with rent for five years straight—checks every month, no questions asked. When I graduated with student loans, I paid them off myself.
No one offered. No one asked if I needed help. The label came gradually, then all at once: Sienna, the selfish one.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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