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“I need air,” Brooke said abruptly, dropping her ring hand to her side and pushing through the crowd toward the balcony. Michael hesitated, then followed.
My mother moved to go after her, but my father stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Let them go, Patricia,” he said quietly. “We need to talk to Sophia.”
Elizabeth sensed the tension and stepped away after I told her I would see her in Geneva.
Once she was gone, my mother turned to me, mascara smudged by tears.
“How,” she whispered, “could you have achieved all of this and we didn’t know?”
“Because you never asked,” I said simply.
The truth hung between us.
My mother flinched.
“Because every conversation about my life became a conversation about Brooke,” I continued. “Because you assumed that if I wasn’t posting online or demanding attention, I had nothing worth sharing. Because for eight years, you treated my work and my life like background noise.”
James nodded. “I’ve watched it for years. Every call. Every family gathering. It’s always the Brooke Show. Brooke’s job. Brooke’s boyfriend. Brooke’s engagement. Sophia could cure cancer and you’d ask whether Brooke wanted dessert.”
“That’s not fair,” my father snapped, anger flickering in his eyes. “We love you both.”
“Do you?” I asked.
He blinked.
“Can you tell me what company I work for? My job title? What disease I study? Where I live? Anything about my actual life?”
Neither of them answered.
“Helix Pharmaceuticals,” James said finally. “Director of oncology research. Pancreatic cancer. Twenty-eight forty-seven Sterling Heights Drive.”
My mother whispered, “We should have known that.”
“Yes,” I said. “You should have.”
My father looked smaller now. “What do you want from us, Sophia?”
“Nothing,” I said.
The answer surprised even me.
Once, I would have had a list. See me. Ask about me. Be proud. Show up. But those wishes had hardened, then fallen away.
“I wanted you to be proud of me,” I admitted. “I wanted you to care about my work. I wanted you to see me. But I stopped wanting that about four years ago, when I accepted it wasn’t going to happen.”
“It can happen now,” my mother said quickly. “We can fix this.”