She smiled as noises from the kitchen drifted to her ears. The family was gathered about the dinner table. The meal was over bit the family lingered, spending a little longer in their togetherness.

“And if he does that again you should hit him.”

That was the voice of the second eldest daughter, who was three years younger than herself. She was tough, a black belt although she was only fourteen. This daughter was the leader that the eldest had never been.

“I can’t hit him! I don’t hit my friends,” the youngest, the only son, retorted.

“If he was your friend he wouldn’t be doing that to you!” The youngest daughter argued.

Only a thin wall separated her from the family. She was the eldest child. She knew that she should be out there with them in the midst of the argument.

But she was an outcast, the child of her mother from her former marriage and it seemed that every time she returned from visiting her father, the connection with this side of her family grew more and more distant.

She wanted to join them, it the warm and laughter filled kitchen but she never had previously and didn’t know how.

So she sat back to listen and remained cold and alone.