All my life I was convinced I was the only child in the family, just like my parents. Dad had lots of funny stories from his childhood, but all with friends, and sometimes he would sigh languidly, saying that he wished he had grown up without a brother or sister, and that I was growing up the same way. It would have been so much more fun together. Mom agreed out of politeness, though I know she enjoyed growing up as an only child. Even as an adult, my grandparents helped us a lot and spoiled me, as the only grandchild. Since no one in the family ever mentioned other relatives, I thought our family was small.
When I had just turned eighteen and failed my entrance exams, my mother fell ill. My father was gone at the time – he had been killed in an accident a few years before, and then my mother was going to leave me. My mother needed a lot of money for her treatment, which my grandparents could not find, and they apparently overcame their old grudges and got in touch with their daughter, whom they had not thought of for years.
I have now found out how things were: my aunt was six years older than my mother, and at eighteen she had married a man from Israel. My grandparents were upset that no one had consulted them, and my aunt was thinking of moving away, leaving her parents behind. Later, when she tried to reconcile and financially support her parents, they said they didn’t need anything from her and didn’t keep in touch. My mother resented my sister, too, because she just abandoned her family and everyone else for some love. But for my mother’s sake, my sister and her husband flew to their native land for the first time in a long time. They offered to take my mother to them, because they have better medicine, connections, and opportunities, and they offered me to move, too. It’s enough to improve my English, you can try to go to university there. They will give us housing, provide us with everything we need, you just have to agree to leave my grandparents and for the sake of my mother and my future to decide to move.
Mom is in a terrible state, she has already agreed to go, and I am torn by uncertainty. On the one hand, I have to go with her and be there for her, and on the other – to take care of my grandparents. I’m not talking about next year, when I was planning to go again. Anyway, I don’t know what to do…
