“I said don’t touch my doll!” Isabella shrieked, wrenching the porcelain beauty with golden curls from her older sister’s grasp. “Mum! Charlotte’s at my toys again!”
“Oh, don’t be such a stingy thing!” snapped eight-year-old Charlotte, reluctantly letting go. “Who does she think she is, royalty?”
“Girls, must you bellow at this hour?” Margaret emerged from the kitchen drying her hands. “Charlotte, leave your sister be. Your toy chest is overflowing.”
“Mine are all worn out, hers are new!” Charlotte retorted hotly. “It’s not fair!”
“Because I’m the youngest,” Isabella said smugly, clutching the doll. “Mum said so herself.”
Charlotte gritted her teeth, silent. Yes, Mum had said it. So had Nan. And Aunt Lydia. Everyone echoed it: ‘Isabella’s the baby, indulge her,’ ‘Isabella’s delicate, mind her,’ ‘Isabella’s such a sweetheart.’
And Charlotte? Charlotte was big. Charlotte was tough. Charlotte had to understand. Always understand. Always yield.
“Come for breakfast,” Mum sighed. “And call your sister.”
At school, Charlotte tried forgetting the home squabbles, but even there, her little sister’s shadow lingered. Mrs. Evans often asked after Isabella, if she was poorly, when she’d start Year One.
“Charlotte dear, helping your sister get ready for school?” she inquired once after class.
“Helping,” Charlotte lied.
She despised those sessions. Isabella whinged, refused letters, complained she was tired. Mum always said, “Don’t bully her! Can’t you see the child’s worn out?”
“Isabella, that’s not how you write an ‘A’!” Charlotte fumed, rubbing out a crooked mess. “Watch properly!”
“Don’t want to!” Isabella sniffled. “My hand hurts!”
“Rubbish! You’re just lazy!”
“Mum! Charlotte’s calling me names!” Isabella wailed instantly.
And Mum, naturally, scolded Charlotte. Always Charlotte.
When Isabella started school, Charlotte hoped she’d grasp the slog: studying, getting Cs and Ds. But no. Isabella sailed through, earning straight As, adored by the teachers.
“Your sister’s frightfully clever!” gushed Charlotte’s form tutor. “Top marks consistently. You could take a leaf from her book about effort.”
Charlotte clenched her fists, mute. What could she say? That Isabella wasn’t clever, just lucky? It all landed in her lap without trying? While Charlotte slaved into the night for a single B?
Home was no refuge either. Isabella blossomed into a true beauty – fair hair, blue eyes, flawless skin. Neighbours cooed: “Oh, what a little doll! An absolute angel!”
Charlotte? Charlotte was plain. Neither beauty nor beast; just an ordinary girl with brown hair and grey eyes. Nothing special.
“Our Isabella will be on the stage,” Mum mused dreamily, brushing her daughter’s hair. “Or model. With looks like that, it’d be a crime not to.”
Charlotte pretended not to hear, each word cutting deep. So she, Charlotte, didn’t have looks worth using? So she’d amount to nothing?
“I’m going to be a doctor,” she murmured once.
“A doctor?” Mum sounded surprised. “Well… if you manage it. You need top grades.”
*’If you manage it.’* Not ‘You will’ or ‘You can,’ but *’if’*. Like Mum scarcely believed her.
Meanwhile, Isabella thrived. In secondary, boys buzzed round her. She flirted, giggled, wallowed in gifts and bouquets. Charlotte watched with bitter envy.
“Look, emerald earrings from Andrew!” Isabella chirped, twirling before the mirror. “Matches my eyes!”
“Lovely,” Charlotte forced out.
She craved gifts and compliments too. But why look at a dull mouse with such a dazzler nearby?
“Feeling sour, Charlie?” Isabella noticed her mood. “Want me to buy you earrings?”
“Don’t bother,” Charlotte shut her down.
She wanted no handouts, no pity. She wanted to be seen, valued, loved for herself. But where?
Isabella won a place at drama school. Mum was over the moon.
“I knew you’d grace the stage!” she beamed. “Such talent, such looks! You’ll be famous!”
Charlotte meanwhile chipped away at medical studies. Gruelling. Anatomy, physiology, chemistry – endless revision, constant strain. She persisted. She’d be a doctor. Not a star like her sister, but needed.
“How’s Uni?” Mum asked, though clearly more invested in Isabella’s theatrical triumphs.
“Fine,” came the clipped reply.
“Isabella rang! They cast her as Juliet in her year’s play! Imagine! First year – lead role!”
Yes, Charlotte imagined. Isabella always led.
Years passed. Isabella became an actress, moderately known. Regional theatre, bit parts in soaps. Mum still swelled with pride: daughter, an actress! Charlotte qualified as a GP, working an NHS surgery, healing people. Mum seemed… less impressed.
“Isabella’s in another new serial,” she told friends. “On the telly next month. Charlotte? Oh, works at the surgery.”
Charlotte stayed silent. What to say? That her work mattered? That she saved lives, not merely amused? Who cared?
Isabella married first, naturally. To a handsome actor from her company. A lavish £30k wedding, guests galore, paparazzi flashes. Mum radiated joy, boasting of the wonderful son-in-law, the picture-perfect couple.
“You next, Charlie love?” aunts probed. “Nudging thirty, still flying solo?”
Charlotte shrugged. Romance never clicked. No time? Wrong men? Or was she simply invisibly ordinary, eclipsed by her dazzling sister?
Isabella had a daughter a year later. Fair-haired, pretty. Mum was beside herself.
“My granddaughter! Darling!” she wept, clutching the child. “Such a beauty! Spitting image of her mum!”
Charlotte gazed at her niece, wondering: Would history repeat? Would her own daughters (if they existed) live forever in this little princess’s shadow?
Life, however, held surprises. Isabella’s marriage lasted three years. The handsome actor proved charmingly feckless. Left for a fresher girl, abandoning his wife and child.
“How could this happen?” Mum sobbed. “Such a perfect pair, both so talented!”
Isabella wailed, calling herself a fool and failure. She left the stage – a toddler needed her, acting wages wouldn’t cover rent.
“What now?” she sobbed. “Where do I work? I only know theatre!”
Charlotte heard the self-pity and thought: This was life’s true face. Beauty, talent
Years later, watching Sophie’s daughter graduate from university – the first in their family to become an engineer – Vera rested a hand gently on Sophie’s shoulder as they stood beside each other in the crowded hall, their niece turning to beam at both her “brilliant doctor Aunt Vera” and her “glamorous salon-owner Aunt Sophie,” marveling aloud how anyone ever thought sharing dolls was the biggest problem sisters could have.
The Sister I Disdained Since Childhood
