The Darkest Child

by Delores Phillips

I thought she was beautiful, despite my acquaintance with the demon that hibernated beneath her elegant surface.

I loved her with all my heart, but if she did not die by Monday morning, I was determined to discover from the pages of my schoolbooks, how to break the chains that bound me to my mother.

My next eldest sibling, Martha Jean, was a defective replica of our mother. She could not hear and had never spoken one coherent sentence in her life.

We would be smart, beautiful, and white, and Mama would love us with all of her heart.

I wondered that day if I was the only one in the room who knew that there was something terribly wrong with our mother.