1 My older brother, Simon, was born with selective mutism and severe autism. To cure him, our mother tried every desperate measure imaginable. When I was a year old, I accidentally rolled off the bed and started crying hysterically. Miraculously, Simon spoke his very first words. "Sister... fell. It hurts." "Mom, make it better for sister." But the moment I stopped crying, Simon sank back into complete silence. My mother looked at me, and her eyes filled with a sudden, terrifying hope. From that day on, I became Simon's speaking doll. The longer my mother made me cry, the more words Simon would speak. Over the years, I learned to perform on cue. Whenever Simon had a recitation competition, I would force myself to cry bitterly for exactly thirty minutes. Not a second more, not a second less. But there were times when the tears wouldn't come. During those times, Mother would resort to any physical pain to coax them out. The longest I ever cried was when I fell down the stairs and broke my arm. Simon practiced his speech all night, and the next day, he won first place. To celebrate, Mother bought me a massive chocolate cake. Everything changed on the day Simon was scheduled to meet his wealthy biological father. Simon froze, unable to squeeze out a single word, and his father left in deep disappointment. Mother snapped. She screamed hysterically, shaking Simon by the shoulders. "If you don't speak, your father will never come back! Without him, there's no point in me living!" "I am going to cure you once and for all today!" She grabbed my arm and dragged me up to the rooftop of our apartment building. She tied a rope around my waist and suspended me over the edge, hundreds of feet above the cold concrete pavement. I could see the old rope fraying, thread by thread. But this time, I didn't cry. I looked up at Simon and gave him a bright, beautiful smile. Because Simon had once whispered to me that he loved seeing me smile. Suspended in the empty air, the wind lashed against my face, making my body swing violently. The knots around my waist bit deep into my skin, burning like fire. I kept my eyes fixed upward, refusing to look down. Simon’s face was deathly pale, his eyes wide with terror as he stared at the fraying rope. He was shaking so hard he could barely stand. He didn't dare raise his voice to provoke our mother, so he just desperately pulled at her sleeve, pointing at the rope, begging her to pull me back up. But Mother refused to listen. She wept, screaming at him. "Simon, I don't want to hurt you!" "But if you hadn't stood there like a mute in front of your father, would I have to do this?" "Your sister is suffering today because you are useless!" Simon flinched, looking at me with absolute despair. I looked down at the frayed threads near my waist, then back up at my brother, mouthing silently: Don't worry, Simon. I had realized long ago that in this family, my tears were a commodity. My mother would pinch my thighs to make me cry before Simon's doctor appointments. She would find ways to hurt and humiliate me before his school events. The harder I cried, the more Simon spoke, and the happier Mother became. The time I broke my arm, I spent the entire night shivering in pain. But Simon had stayed by my hospital bed, clumsily practicing his words over and over. When he won his trophy the next day, Mother was ecstatic, buying me that giant cake. Back then, I was foolish enough to believe that my pain could buy a little bit of sweetness. But Simon was different from our mother. Mother only cared about the results of her sick experiments. Simon, however, carried an immense burden of guilt every time I was hurt. He would secretly hide candies in my pockets, whisper "don't cry, sissy" in my ear, and sit by my bed when the pain kept me awake at night. I could never hate him. The wind grew stronger, and I felt my body drop another fraction of an inch as the rope groaned against the concrete ledge. A broken, strangled sound finally tore from Simon’s throat. "Stop... stop... save sissy..." Hearing him speak, Mother's face lit up with a manic joy. "Keep going! Say more!" She didn't notice that the moldy hemp rope was unraveling at its thinnest point. Another gust of wind caught me, swinging my body outward. The sudden pressure against my ribs was so agonizing that I nearly let out a scream. Seeing this, Simon lunged forward, his knees slamming hard against the gravel on the roof. Ignoring the pain, he grabbed the rope near Mother’s hands. "Save sissy..." "Mom, please..." But Mother, completely consumed by her delusion, shoved him away. "Now you're scared?" "Why didn't you speak yesterday? Your father looked at you like you were defective! If you don't speak, he is never coming back!" "Without him, I have nothing!" Below us, a crowd was gathering on the street. People were pointing, shouting, and recording with their phones. But Mother was oblivious to the chaos. Like a desperate gambler who had finally hit a winning streak, she grabbed her phone, hit record, and shoved it in Simon’s face, forcing him to keep talking. "Speak! Tell me you'll speak to your father next time!" She didn't care that her daughter was hanging by a thread over an abyss. She only cared about the audio file. Simon was on the verge of collapse. Looking at me, his voice trembled violently, but he didn't dare stop, terrified that if he fell silent, she would let go of the rope. "Sissy, don't be scared..." "Mom, save... sissy." I stared up at him, my throat tight. I knew he wasn't choosing to be silent. He was sick. But Mother refused to accept his diagnosis, preferring to use my life as his medicine. As the minutes dragged on, Simon's voice grew raspy, every word sounding as if it were tearing his throat apart. "Dad, Dad..." But Mother wanted more. She wanted him to sound natural, to sound like a normal child. "Keep going!" "Say you want your father to come home!" Her voice was shrill, cutting through the wind. Simon’s face was flushed, tears streaming down his cheeks as he struggled to force the words out. "Dad... come back..." "I will... be good..." "I will... speak..." His entire body was convulsing with the effort. Yet, the only thing in Mother’s eyes was an increasingly manic excitement, as if she were looking at a machine she had finally fixed. Suddenly, Simon went quiet. His eyes locked onto the rope near the ledge, and his face turned translucent with horror. He saw it. The rope was down to its final threads. Simon screamed and lunged for the rope to pull me up, but Mother, assuming he was trying to back out, yanked the line backward, shrieking at him. "Just a little more!" "Once we get through today, you'll be cured! We'll be a family again!" Frantic, Simon struggled to wrest the rope from her grip. Mother lost her footing, stumbling backward, and the rope slipped through her fingers. My body dropped several feet in a sudden, violent plunge. My heart stopped, and a terrified scream escaped my lips. That scream finally broke the tension below. The onlookers panicked, and sirens began to wail in the distance. Hanging there, I felt a deep, hollow exhaustion. It wasn't a physical fatigue. It was a weariness that went down to my bones. I had lived a short life, but I had never lived a single day for myself. My tears belonged to Simon's progress; my pain was the proof of Mother's methods. My entire existence was defined by how much of myself I could sacrifice. But Simon was the only one who hated seeing me cry. The clearest, most deliberate sentence he had ever spoken to me was that he loved my smile. Thinking of that, I decided I didn't want to cry anymore. Suddenly, the heavy metal door to the rooftop was kicked open. My father had finally arrived. The moment he saw me dangling over the edge, he froze, his face turning entirely pale. He sprinted to the ledge, his hands gripping the rope alongside Simon, the veins in his arms bulging with exertion. Seeing the state of the rope and my bloodless face, he knew I didn't have minutes left. He turned and roared at my mother, "Are you out of your mind!" But Mother was completely detached from reality. She laughed, her shoulders shaking with excitement. "Just a little more, Charles!" "Simon is speaking! He's almost cured!" "We can get back together now! We can have our family back!" Charles evaluated the situation quickly. He knew he couldn't reason with her. Although sirens were approaching, the rescue teams wouldn't make it to the roof in time, and the rope was seconds away from snapping. He had to play into her delusion. He clenched his teeth, forcing his voice to soften. "Let Tessa up first, Eleanor." "Pull our daughter up, and I promise I'll sign the remarriage papers. I'll do whatever you want." "You wanted to prove to Valerie that you didn't lose, right? We can do that. Just pull her up." Eleanor froze. In her twisted mind, she had just won everything. Her son was speaking, and her husband was returning to her. Weeping with joy, she let go of her end of the rope and ran to tie the remaining slack to a heavy concrete pillar on the roof, believing it would secure me. She didn't realize that the fibers of the rope were already severed at the ledge. Eager to secure her victory, she demanded they go to City Hall immediately. She didn't trust verbal promises; she wanted the paper. To prevent Charles and Simon from pulling me up without her, she dragged them toward the exit. "The rope is tied to the pillar; she'll be fine for an hour!" "If you don't come with me to sign the papers right now, I'll cut the rope myself!" Charles looked as if he wanted to strangle her, but looking at my fading consciousness and the fragile state of the rope, he had to comply to keep her from doing something even more drastic. Eleanor locked the heavy metal door to the rooftop behind them, dragging Charles down the stairs. Simon, left on the other side of the door, kicked and pounded on the metal, his voice growing hoarse as he screamed through the small iron grate. "Hold on, sissy! I'm here! I won't leave you!" During the drive to City Hall, Charles’s mind was entirely consumed by his daughter hanging from the building. Beside him, Eleanor was laughing and crying, clutching his arm. "We're going to start over. Simon is speaking. Our family is whole again." At the registry, Charles signed his name with a trembling hand, his heart sinking into his chest. And at the exact moment Eleanor held up the fresh marriage certificate, weeping with triumph, the frayed rope on the rooftop finally snapped. A dull, terrible crack echoed across the empty roof. Simon watched from the window as my body plunged toward the earth. He let out a soul-shattering scream. I hit the emergency cushions the onlookers had set up below, but the impact from that height was too massive. The world went completely black. Simon sprinted down the stairs, falling and scraping his knees, before throwing himself into the ambulance beside me. Meanwhile, Eleanor and Charles were caught in a sudden traffic jam on their way back. An ambulance with blaring sirens sped past their car. Charles felt a sudden, icy dread in his chest. Beside him, Eleanor was still smiling, planning their future. "Charles, we're going to live a good life now. I'll take care of you and the children." Charles couldn't say a word. At the hospital, Simon was already standing outside the operating room. Covered in my blood, he stood there like an empty shell. For the first time in his life, without any prompting or pain, he spoke in full, coherent sentences. He begged the surgeons to save his sister, crying that she was terrified of pain, that he had promised to buy her a cake, that she couldn't die. But the fluency of his words was nothing but a cruel irony. It was exactly what our mother had wanted, but it had cost my life. After what felt like an eternity, the surgeon stepped out of the room, lowering his head. "I am sorry. We did everything we could..." Simon stood frozen. At that moment, my spirit detached from my body. I looked down at the operating table, seeing my pale, blood-stained face. I was dead. Simon pulled out his phone and dialed Mother's number. Eleanor answered, still talking excitedly about the marriage certificate. Simon let out a ragged sob. "Sissy is dead." Eleanor’s voice faltered. "That's impossible. The rope was tied. She was fine when we left. You're just upset, Simon." But Charles had already grabbed the wheel, turning the car around and speeding toward the apartment building. When they arrived, the police had already broken open the rooftop door. Eleanor ran to the pillar, her eyes locking onto the severed hemp rope. She froze, stumbling toward the ledge. Looking down, the dark, dried pool of blood on the concrete pavement below pierced Charles’s eyes. He collapsed, clutching his head as he let out a guttural cry of grief. Eleanor gripped the railing, her face entirely bloodless. The marriage certificate slipped from her fingers, drifting slowly down into the wind.
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