Nobody Home But Me

I’m a spoiled only child. No patience built through years of sibling friction, no empathy earned from having to share anything. My friends grew up negotiating TV time with older brothers, talking little sisters out of touching their stuff—I ate the whole packet of cookies and nobody said a word. Sent Mario into Bowser’s castle alone. Had a bedroom that was mine, always.

What I didn’t understand was the bond. I used to imagine a smaller version of me I could drag through Saturday morning cartoons, hand a second controller, fight with and then forget why. An older sister who’d actually worry whether I got home safe—not from duty, but from the territorial attachment that grows when you’ve shared a wall with someone for eighteen years. Or a whole pack: the ones who’d knock me down and pick me up, teach me things by accident, embarrass me in front of people I was trying to impress, and still be the first ones I’d call.

I never had any of that. The question stays open somewhere in the back of things. You can’t fully mourn something you’ve never experienced—you just have this vague outline of it, the shadow of a room where someone else might have been. Whether it’s loss or luck I genuinely can’t say, and I’ve turned it over long enough that I’ve stopped expecting the answer to arrive.