My Mother Started Calling Me by My Dead Sister’s Name

By Anees Ul Ameen

My mother forgot my birthday last year.

That alone wasn’t strange. Grief rearranges memory. It eats dates, names, even faces. But what she said instead froze me where I stood.

“Come here, Ayesha,” she called softly from the kitchen.

My name isn’t Ayesha.

It’s Ali.

Ayesha was my sister.

She died twelve years ago.

At first, I corrected her gently.

“It’s Ali, Ammi.” fgnndfhRhtvSAf bff cz x zc c gd dFdsrhghdz ddvef wfg g g gd dsa faw af segs ewtet trf d d fsa df dg

She looked at me, confused, then smiled. “Of course it is. I don’t know why I said that.”

But the next day, she did it again.

And the next.

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Soon, she stopped correcting herself at all.

Ayesha died when she was eight.

Fever. Hospital. Machines that beeped too slowly. I was thirteen then, old enough to understand death but too young to process guilt.

Because the night before she fell sick, I had yelled at her.

I had wished—just for a moment—that she would disappear.

I never told anyone that.

My mother started changing.

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She cooked Ayesha’s favorite meals. Folded tiny clothes that no longer existed. Hummed lullabies she hadn’t sung in years.

One evening, I found her sitting on the floor of Ayesha’s old room.

“It’s cold tonight,” she whispered. “You should sleep with me.”

My stomach tightened.

“There’s no one here, Ammi.”

She looked at the corner of the room.

“Yes, there is.”

I convinced myself it was dementia. Doctors. Tests. Medication.

They said she was grieving in delayed waves.

“Be patient,” they told me.

So I stayed.

One night, I woke to the sound of laughter.

Not my mother’s.

A child’s.

Soft. Familiar.

Coming from the hallway.

I followed it.

My mother stood outside my bedroom, smiling.

“Ayesha wanted to see you,” she said.

I felt my blood drain from my face.

“There’s no Ayesha,” I whispered.

Her smile faded.

“She says you’re lying.”

That night, I dreamed of my sister.

She stood at the foot of my bed, hair damp, eyes hollow.

“You never said sorry,” she said.

I woke screaming.

The house changed after that.

Lights flickered. Doors closed on their own. Small fingerprints appeared on fogged mirrors.

My mother stopped calling me Ali completely.

“You’ll always be my brother,” she said gently.

Brother.

Not son.

I finally opened the box I had hidden for years.

Inside was Ayesha’s old diary.

And a folded piece of paper.

My handwriting.

I hate you.

I wish you’d go away.

I had written it as a child and shoved it under her pillow.

I don’t remember doing that.

But the guilt remembered me.

The final night, my mother knocked on my door at 3 a.m.

“She’s ready,” she said.

“For what?”

“To forgive you.”

The hallway was cold. The air heavy.

Ayesha’s room was no longer empty.

A small shape sat on the bed.

Waiting.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, tears choking me. “I didn’t mean it.”

The shape tilted its head.

“I know,” my sister’s voice said.

The lights went out.

In the morning, my mother was asleep in her bed.

Peaceful.

She calls me Ali again now.

She remembers everything.

But sometimes, when she thinks I’m not listening, she whispers—

“She forgave him.”

And the house creaks like it’s breathing.

— Written by Anees Ul Ameen

Author’s Note

This story was written with the assistance of AI and carefully edited, revised, and finalized by Anees Ul Ameen.