I’ve always believed that sisters carry the earliest draft of who we are. They remember the unpolished versions of us, the tantrums, the dreams we abandoned, the parts we try to edit out once we’re grown. They know the chapters we wish we could rewrite, even when we pretend those pages were never written at all.
In my life, those chapters are shared with two sisters who could not be more different if they’d been raised on opposite sides of the world instead of under the same roof. And for most of my thirty-three years, I’ve lived squarely between them, acting as a mediator whether I wanted the role or not.
My name is Rachel. I’m the middle sister.
My oldest sister, Margot, is thirty-six. My youngest sister, Tessa, is twenty-nine. And somehow, I’ve spent my adulthood balancing between Margot’s sharp edges and Tessa’s softness, trying to keep everyone from colliding.
I love them both. Truly. But if you lined the three of us up, you’d assume we came from three entirely different families.
Margot has always been… formidable. She walks into a room, and the energy shifts, like furniture rearranging itself to make space. She’s impeccably groomed, impeccably organised, impeccably controlled. Her pantry is alphabetised. Her calendar is colour-coded. She irons her children’s clothes down to the socks.
She’s the kind of woman who posts “candid family moments” online that somehow have perfect lighting, clean backgrounds, and not a hair out of place. If there is a mess in her life, she hides it so well that even dust can’t find it.
She has two children, both older than mine, and while I adore my niece and nephews, Margot treats their accomplishments like museum pieces carefully displayed, frequently polished, and proudly shown off to anyone within reach.
Then there’s Tessa.
Tessa is warmth in human form. She’s the person who notices when your voice sounds different on the phone, who shows up with soup when you didn’t even tell her you were sick. She listens more than she speaks. She forgives faster than most people can apologise. She’s the one you want beside you in a hospital waiting room or on a bad night when everything feels too heavy.
And then there’s me. The in-between. The peacekeeper. The one who learned early that keeping calm was easier than winning arguments.
Growing up, Margot always had to be the best—best grades, best posture, best reputation. She thrived on comparison, even when no one else was competing. I learned pretty quickly that trying to match her wasn’t worth the energy. It was easier to step aside and let her shine.
For the most part, that strategy worked.
Until I got pregnant with twins.
The shift in Margot was subtle at first, but immediate. She acted thrilled, squealing and hugging me and posting congratulatory messages that made her look like the world’s most supportive sister. But within days, the comments started slipping through the cracks.
“Double the chaos,” she joked once, her smile a little too tight.
Another time, she laughed and said, “Twins are cute, but they’re more of a novelty than real parenting. It’s like crowd control instead of actual child-rearing.”
I laughed politely, because that’s what I’d been trained to do. But the words lodged themselves somewhere tender.
When my daughters, Isla and Maeve, were born, whatever polite pretence Margot had been maintaining vanished.
Everything about my girls seemed to irritate her.
If they cried during a family dinner, she sighed loudly, like their tiny lungs were a personal attack. If they wore mismatched outfits because, frankly, I had bigger things to worry about, she gave me that familiar look, the one that said I was failing in some deeply embarrassing way.
But the moment that broke something in me happened when I overheard her whispering to our mother in the kitchen one afternoon.
“Some people just shouldn’t have more than one child at a time,” she murmured.
I stood frozen in the hallway, the words twisting in my chest. I wasn’t angry at first. I was hurt. Deeply, unexpectedly hurt.
And that was the moment I finally admitted what I’d been avoiding for months.
Margot wasn’t jealous of me.
She was jealous of my children.
The realisation made everything click into place. Margot has always tied her worth to how impressive her life looks from the outside—her house, her marriage, her kids. She needs admiration the way some people need air.
When Isla and Maeve were born, the attention shifted. Our parents fussed over the twins. Extended family members cooed and called constantly. Even neighbours stopped me on walks to admire them.
For someone like Margot, who had always been the centrepiece, that sudden shift must have felt like the spotlight moving off her without permission.
She never adjusted to it. And I don’t think she ever wanted to.
So I pulled back. I didn’t confront her. I didn’t fight. I simply created distance. Years passed. Polite holidays. Minimal contact. Emotional self-preservation disguised as busyness.
That’s why, when my mother begged me to invite Margot to the twins’ fourth birthday party, I hesitated.
But when your mother pleads with you, voice trembling, insisting that “family should be together,” it’s hard to stand your ground.
So I caved.
On the day of the party, Margot arrived exactly on time, as she always did. She carried a massive pink-and-gold box that looked like it belonged in a department store holiday display. It was nearly as tall as my daughters, wrapped flawlessly, every corner sharp and perfect.
She handed it to me with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Happy birthday to the girls,” she said, sweet as sugar and just as cutting.
“Thank you,” I replied, because I’ve had years of practice ignoring her tone.
The party itself was lovely. Balloons, cake, laughter, sticky fingers. After we sang and cut the cake, everyone gathered in the living room for gifts. I stood ready to help Isla and Maeve navigate the growing pile—including that enormous, glittering box that seemed to demand attention from every angle.
And then there was a violent pounding on the front door.
Not a polite knock. Not a ring of the bell. Frantic, desperate banging that made my heart leap into my throat.
I rushed to the door, frosting still on my hands, and opened it.
Tessa practically fell inside.
Her hair was wild, her cheeks flushed, her chest heaving as if she’d run the entire way. She looked terrified.
“Tessa?” I said. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Please tell me you haven’t opened Margot’s gift yet,” she gasped.
“No—no, not yet.”
“Good,” she said shakily. “Please. Don’t.”
She rushed past me, scanning the room like she expected danger to leap out from under the wrapping paper. When she spotted the massive box, she spun back to me, eyes wide.
“Do NOT let the girls open that box.”
My stomach dropped.
“What are you talking about?”
“I overheard something,” she whispered. “Sophie said Margot planned something awful. I had to get here.”
Sophie was a longtime family friend—someone we’d all known since childhood.
“Tessa, where have you been?” I asked. “You were supposed to be here an hour ago.”
“My phone died,” she said. “And then my tyre blew out on the highway.”
“What?” I stared at her. “You should’ve called for help.”
“I tried. My phone was dead. I had to walk until I found one of those emergency call boxes.”
My husband, Michael, appeared behind me. “You could’ve been hurt.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Tessa said. “I just knew I had to get here.”
A chill ran down my spine. If Tessa—calm, thoughtful Tessa—had gone through all that, whatever she’d overheard had to be serious.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
She pulled me aside. “I stopped by Sophie’s place to grab craft supplies for the girls. She was on the phone when I walked in and didn’t see me at first. She said Margot told her she bought something that would ‘finally show who deserves to be the favourite.’”
My heart pounded.
“Sophie told her she couldn’t do that—that they’re four. Margot said, ‘Rachel can deal with the fallout for once.’”
I felt sick.
We returned to the living room just as Margot knelt beside the girls.
“Perfect timing,” she said brightly. “How about this one next? I saved the best for last.”
I stepped between her and my daughters. “I need to check this one first.”
The room went silent.
“Why?” Isla asked softly.
“Just to make sure everything’s okay,” I said. “You trust Mommy?”
They nodded.
I carried the box into the kitchen, followed by Michael, Tessa, and our parents. Margot followed last, furious.
I opened the lid just enough to see inside.
There was a plush toy—one Isla and Maeve had been begging for.
Just one.
Taped inside the lid was a card: For the prettiest and best-behaved girl.
Margot had wanted them to fight.
Something hardened inside me.
“You bought one gift,” I said calmly, “so my daughters would compete for your approval?”
She scoffed. “It’s expensive. One of them is clearly better behaved.”
“That’s enough,” my father snapped.
My mother looked stricken. “How could you be so cruel?”
Margot grabbed her purse. “Unbelievable.”
She left in a storm.
That night, we fixed it. Another plush. Two smiles. No damage done.
When the girls called to say thank you, Margot’s silence said everything.
And as I watched my daughters fall asleep clutching their toys, I made myself a promise.
Some lines, once crossed, can never be uncrossed.
And I will always choose my children over keeping the peace.
