My mother was excited to have her second child. She wanted another bright star in her life, a boy or girl for me to play with, a family of four. It’s a trend in my family that each child has one sibling.

Peace was born with an extremely slow capability to learn. Doctors don’t have a name for it. My mom has been to places across the country, seen doctors in tiny corners of faraway states just to put a damn name on it, but to no avail. The evil villain in this story is a ghost. When people ask me what Peace “has,” I just have to shrug and say,

“Nobody knows. She was just born like that.”

I’ve said it enough that it passes through my lips as easily as one would say they had a bagel for breakfast, or that they saw the most recent movie and that it was okay, but nothing special.

The next question that they ask, is whether it’s hard to live with Peace.

What the fuck am I supposed to say to that? Yes? Get real.

The first time that I mentioned that I found it difficult to have Peace as a sister, I was sitting in a McDonald’s booth with two of my friends and my mom, and they all looked at me, horrified. I can remember the immediate cold drape over my back when I realized that I said something so wrong.

How could I complain, the selfish, spoiled child that I was, when my sister was living with this disability every day?

The first thing my father shouted to me when I got home was that I should be ashamed of myself.

You love your family no matter what, is what he said.

I looked into his hard, black eyes with downturned lips and said, “Okay.” I continued walking up the stairs at the same pace.

Oh, it’s not that bad, really. I don’t actually get embarrassed that often — I’m used to it. Yes, it gets easier. She’s actually fun to play with most of the time. It’s not that bad.