No Room for the Real Daughter

There was a crate strapped into the back seat for the dog. There was no seat for me. My father looked at that crate, then at the floor, then at the wall. Anywhere but at me.

It was Fourth of July week, and my whole family was going on vacation. "There's no room in the car," he said.

The girl they raised instead of me held her poodle tighter and got that look on her face, the one right before the tears.

My birth brother handed me a plane ticket north. "There's no room, Ridge. You know how she is. She's never spent a night away from us." "I got you a flight.

You go on ahead and wait for us there." I nodded. I took the little ticket out of his hand. He let out a breath. He had no idea I wasn't going to be waiting for them anywhere.

I cashed in that ticket and bought a oneway south instead. South is where I was born. South is Laurel Hollow, North Carolina.

South is a mother and a daddy and a brother who love me like their own air. This time I wasn't coming back.

Chapter 1 The night before the family vacation, the crate for the dog was already strapped into the back seat.

My birth brother handed me a plane ticket north. "Ridge, there's no room in the car. You know how Ivy is, she's never spent a night away from us." "I got you a flight.

You go on ahead and wait for us in D.C." I nodded. I took the little ticket out of his hand. Bennett let out a breath. He had no idea I wasn't going to be waiting for them anywhere.

I cashed in that ticket and bought a oneway south instead. Ridge is short for Ridgely.

My mama named me after the ridge that stands over our house, where three hundred men are buried, and every girl in that hollow grows up knowing what the name costs.

South is where I was born. Laurel Hollow. South is the mother and daddy and brother who raised me. This time I wasn't coming back.

The day before the Fourth, the whole house was in motion. Mrs. Ashworth started packing at sunup, then took Ivy to the mall and came home with bags of pretty clothes. Mr.

Ashworth filled the tank early. Then he went out to the car and strapped a padded crate into the back seat for Ivy's poodle. He got it buckled down tight. Then he stopped.

He glanced at me and his ears went red. "Ridge. Honey. I about forgot, there's one more of us this year." "I'll pull the crate right back out.

Your sister can board the dog at the kennel." Ivy's eyes went pink on cue.

Fat tears came rolling down while she squeezed that little white poodle against her chest. "Daddy, Peaches has never been away from us. Not one day since she was born." "It's okay.

I'll stay home. Give my seat to my sister." "I can keep Peaches company. I don't mind. Really." Mr. Ashworth's face closed up. "Not a chance. You've never been away from us either.

You think your mother and I could enjoy one minute of that trip?" Ivy bit her lip. Her eyes came sliding over to me. "So what about her?" "There's no room in the car.

What's my sister supposed to do?" He looked at me. Then at Ivy. Then back at me. And he couldn't answer. One of us was the daughter they'd made, swapped at birth, home three weeks.

Chapter 2 The other one was the girl with none of their blood in her, the one who'd been under their roof for eighteen years.

Both of them were his, and he couldn't cut either one loose. Ivy watched him struggle. She hugged the dog closer. She backed up two steps.

The tears came faster, and her voice broke in all the right places. "Daddy, I'm sorry. I was wrong." "I shouldn't have pushed. She's the real one.

She's yours and Mom's." "I'm the extra person in this house. Me." "I'm not going. You and Mom take her, y'all go have fun." "You and Ben and Mom and her.

That's the real family." She was shaking by the end of it. She turned with the dog in her arms and ran for the stairs.

Halfway up, her foot came down on the edge of a step and she went over backward. "Ivy!" Bennett hit me from behind with his shoulder.

He crossed that room in two steps and caught her clean, before she'd fallen four feet. She didn't get a scratch on her. My knee slammed into the corner of the coffee table.

It swelled while I stood there. A knot the size of a plum, and the pain went up through the bone and sat down in my teeth. Nobody turned around. I bit down and I straightened up.

Mama raised me on one rule. We come off the Ridge. We bleed and we sweat, we don't cry.

Ivy buried her face in Bennett's chest like the world had wronged her personally, crying so prettily I almost wanted to applaud. "Ben. I'm sorry.

This whole thing is my fault, I made this house have an extra person in it." "I don't want to put y'all in a spot. Take her. I'll stay home." Bennett held on to her.

He frowned at me over the top of her head, then dropped his chin and lowered his voice for her. "Nobody's leaving you anywhere. Not Mom, not Dad.

Not me." She tipped her face up, weteyed, and waited. She already had the answer and I think she knew it. "What about Peaches?

Can Peaches come too?" Bennett looked down at the poodle sitting by his shoe.

Then he looked at me. "Peaches comes with us." The smile that came up on Ivy's little face was a heartbreaker. Perfectly timed.

Then she turned her head and saw me, and it dropped away white. She caught her lip in her teeth. "But what about my sister?" Bennett glanced at me.

He bent his head and said something to her I couldn't hear. Ivy smiled at last, scooped up her dog, and went up those stairs happy as a bird.

At the landing she looked back and gave me one more smile. That one was for me alone, and there was not one wet thing left in it. I let it go.

Since the day the Ashworths brought me home, Ivy had tried everything to prove her parents and her brother loved her more. What she didn't know was that I never once wanted the job.

I wasn't a kid who grew up short on love. My mama and my daddy and my brother are good people. The best I've ever known.

They sent me into the world with all the love and all the guts I'd ever need. I kept my head down and said nothing, so Bennett cleared his throat and came over.

Half explaining, half smoothing it over. "Look. We said this trip was all of us, and we're not leaving you sitting home by yourself." "I'll figure something out. Trust me.

Okay?" I nodded. It wasn't a yes. Chapter 3 Mrs. Ashworth said the trip was for me. Every single thing in that suitcase belonged to Ivy. But she had cried when she asked me.

She said it would be my first vacation with them, and the whole family was counting the days. The truth is, I didn't much want to go on that trip anyway.

Here's the part I couldn't work out. Mr. Ashworth said this trip was him paying me back for everything he'd missed.

Then he sat down and worked out the seating, and Ivy's poodle got her own spot, and I got left off the list. And Bennett.

The day he brought me home, he held on to me with his eyes red and swore he'd look after me from here on out. That nothing was ever going to touch me again.

Then a girl slipped on the stairs and he put his shoulder into me to get past. The tears Ivy squeezed out on cue, he caught those. He never once looked at my knee.

You can hide a lot of things from a person. You can't hide who you'd catch first.

What I didn't expect was that Bennett's big solution, the thing he was going to figure out for me, came in a flat white envelope.

A plane ticket to D.C. "Ridge, the interstate's a parking lot over the Fourth. Ten hours in a car is miserable, trust me." "I got you a flight.

You go on ahead and wait for us there." "It's two hours in the air.

You'll beat us there by half a day." Every word out of him was working overtime to prove he was doing me a kindness.

So I asked him. "If flying's that much better, why not send Ivy?" His face changed before he could stop it. "Ivy's not like you!

She's been babied her whole life, she's never even ridden a city bus. How's she supposed to get on a plane by herself?" I smiled at him. "So it's not that the drive's miserable.

It's that the car fits exactly four of you and the dog." "You can't stand to let Ivy be uncomfortable. So the answer is I fly to D.C. by myself." He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out of it, and his hand went tight around the back of the chair. That was the moment I wanted to cry. Not over him. I wanted my brother.

Not Bennett, who shared my blood. My brother. Pickens Blue, five hours south of that living room. Here's a thing Bennett will never know about me. I'd never been anywhere either.

There's no high school up the hollow, so all three years I boarded down at the county seat and came home on weekends. Pick didn't like the idea of me traveling alone.

Every Friday he was standing outside that school when the bell rang. Sunday afternoon he rode the county bus back down with me so I wouldn't sit by myself.

Those roads are all switchbacks and potholes. When there were seats, I slept on his shoulder the whole way.

When there weren't, he put me in front of him and stood there with one hand on the rail. His back covered me. Nobody on that bus ever looked at me twice.

My first weeks in the Ashworth house I missed them so bad I videocalled home almost every night. Chapter 4 Bennett got jealous about it.

He asked me straight out one night which brother I liked better, him or the one who raised me. Back then it made me ashamed.

I thought I was hurting my real brother's feelings, calling the hollow every night like that. I understand it now. You can't hide who you'd catch first.

Put Ivy and me on the same set of stairs, and Bennett will pick Ivy without one second of thought. Put Bennett and Pickens Blue in front of me, and I will pick Pick. Every time.

Forever. We both had our person. That's all it ever was. So I don't blame Bennett. I was going to go find my brother too.

When my hand closed on that ticket, Bennett let out a breath.

Then he thought about it, pulled out his phone, and Venmo'd me five hundred dollars. "Grab whatever you want at the airport, okay? Get yourself a real meal.

My treat." I was about to hand it back. That's when Ivy's voice floated down over the railing. "Ben, you said you'd get me hot wings and gummy worms for the car.

We leave at seven in the morning.

Did you get them or not?" He looked up at her and his whole face went soft. "Have I ever once not gotten you what you asked for?" I looked down at the notification on my screen.

So the things Ivy wanted, my brother drove out and bought with his own hands. The things I wanted, my brother sent money for, and I could go get them myself.

He probably couldn't have named one food I liked. None of it mattered. I was leaving anyway. The next morning, the whole family came downstairs in matching vacation shirts.

I was still in the blueandwhite school hoodie I'd worn home the day they found me. Mrs. Ashworth's penciledin eyebrows drew together. "We're walking out the door.

Why aren't you dressed?" I turned and looked at Bennett. He hadn't told her. Not one word to his mother, all night, about putting me on a plane alone. He stalled out for a second.

His jaw set, and he looked at the ceiling like the answer was up there. One more person in this house, one more thing on his list.

His voice came out short. "There's not enough seats. I got Ridge a flight, she's going ahead of us." Mrs. Ashworth blinked.

Her eyes came to me and slid off again, and she turned on him instead. "And you couldn't mention that to me? A thing like that?" "I've got everything packed!

Now I have to open the whole suitcase back up and pull all her things out of it." "Don't bother opening it." I said it gently, the way you'd remind someone of a birthday. "There's nothing of mine in there.

It's all Ivy's." The blood came up her white face in a wave