The Unwanted Twin

There is a photograph.

First birthday. The whole family around the long table - candles lit, cake centred, everyone leaning toward Isabella reaching for the flame, everyone laughing, everyone looking at the same thing.

At the edge of the frame, barely in it, a small dark-haired girl in a white dress is looking at the candle.

Not at her family. Not at her sister. Not at the camera.

Just at the candle. Quiet. Still. Already, at one year old, watching the warmth from a slight distance.
Nobody remembers who took the photograph. It was never framed. Never put in an album. Found years later in a box in the study, loose, slightly creased, as though it had simply been waiting.

Her name is Serena Marchetti. The second twin. Born eleven minutes after her sister into a room already arranged around someone else - and she stayed that way, at the edge of things, for as long as the Marchettis of Milan would let her.

This is not the story they would tell about her.

This is hers.