Dinner Table Humiliation

I’m the middle child in a family of three, and the one who always brings up the rear when it comes to grades.

Honestly, sometimes it feels like that fact is stamped on my forehead in neon lights. In a house where academic trophies line the shelves and report cards are almost framed, I’ve always been the outlier—the one who can’t seem to measure up, no matter how hard I try. It’s like running a race with your shoelaces tied together. Always a step behind. Always out of breath. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever catch up.

At the dinner celebrating my sister’s recommendation for grad school at Columbia, my father got drunk and said regretfully, “Sometimes I wonder if our second child was switched at birth. How come both your older sister and younger brother have such good grades, but you struggle just to get into high school? If only we’d had just Melissa and Ryan.”

The words hung over the table, heavy and sour, like the aftertaste of cheap whiskey. The laughter faded. For a heartbeat, my chest tightened—I stared at my plate, wishing I could disappear. No one said a thing—not even my mom. The only sound was the clink of my fork against the plate, echoing in the silence.

Later, on his sickbed, he cried and apologized to me. “Autumn, Dad was wrong. I let you down. Will you forgive me?”

His voice was shaky. For the first time, I saw my father not as the towering, critical figure I’d always known, but as a tired old man. Regret etched into the lines on his face. I wanted to say something—anything—but the words caught in my throat. I just nodded, and he squeezed my hand with a grip that trembled.

When my parents were young, they opened a small diner in the city. It was during the late '80s boom, so they became the first in their small town to buy a house in the city. But when I was born, their business failed and they lost a lot of money. To get away from all the debt and fines, they sent me back to the countryside to be raised by my grandmother. The next year, my younger brother was born. I don’t know if they had money again, or if they just cared more about having a boy. For my brother, they paid thousands in fines for breaking China’s two-child policy at the time—back then, families were only allowed one child, unless they could pay hefty penalties—and kept him by their side ever since.

Sometimes, I’d stare at the faded photo of that old diner, tucked behind the salt shaker in our kitchen, and wonder what it was like for them—young, hopeful, thinking the world was theirs for the taking. I never asked. I guess I didn’t want to hear the answer. I’d sigh quietly, turning away, letting the question hang in the air.

When I was little, I often saw my grandmother call them on the old landline, asking when they would come pick me up. I knew my grandmother didn’t like me. She always muttered that it would have been better if I were a boy. On the other end of the phone, my parents would dodge the question. They always said, "Soon, soon, we’ll come pick you up." But they never did. Not until my first year of junior high. That’s when my grandmother hurt her back working in the garden, and they had no choice but to bring me back.

The phone cord would twist around her fingers as she waited for an answer, her voice getting sharper with every call. I’d sit on the steps, pretending not to listen, but I heard every word—especially the ones not meant for me. When the call ended, the silence in that farmhouse felt colder than any winter wind.

When I first started school in the city, my grades immediately dropped from the top five in my old class to thirtieth or fortieth in my new one. I just scraped into a regular public high school after the entrance exam. But my sister and brother were completely different. One got into Columbia with the eighth highest score in the state on the SATs. The other won a state gold medal in eighth grade and was directly admitted to the best high school in the city. Melissa soared. Ryan collected medals. I just… got by.

It was like being dropped into the deep end of a pool and told to swim, while Melissa and Ryan seemed to glide across the surface like they were born to it. Sometimes I’d stare at their certificates tacked up on the fridge, my own faded math test buried underneath grocery lists and coupons. I’d wonder, what’s wrong with me?

At that time, my brother and I attended the same junior high. When classmates found out that Ryan, who was directly admitted, was my brother, they all expressed disbelief. “When your mom gave birth to you, did all the brains go to your brother or what? Otherwise, how come you siblings are so different—one in the sky, one on the ground?”