“My mother says she had my sister only for me. Not for her. Only for me,” the teenaged older sister confides to her friend on the phone.

The little sister is in the pool.

“Do you know what that means?… come on ya, what does it mean?”

A pause…  a sigh. “It means she loves me more. She didn’t want her, she had her for me, because I wanted a baby sister,” the teen continued, playing with her earphone wires, sounding pleased. Louder than she realised, as her ears were plugged.

I sat there pretending to read, my ears tuned into that young girl’s conversation, my heart a little heavy.

What if the little one heard that, how would she feel? What drove the mother to make such a declaration? Was it a way of getting off swimming pool duty, sweet talking the older one into playing guardian? Or was it to make the older one feel loved.

The cruelty of kind words.

PS: I am a habitual eavesdropper, the stories of strangers fascinate me. So begins a new thread of posts.