My Parents Have Double Standards

Christina returns to the Schmidt family after fifteen years in the countryside, only to learn that her parents have made every important decision by drawing lots — and that she has drawn the white stick forty-seven times. The attic, the bicycle, the radio, the sewing machine: all have gone to Jenny, the adopted daughter the Schmidts have raised for fifteen years.

When the family must send one daughter to the countryside, Christina overhears her mother telling her father to replace the sticks with two white ones, because Jenny is too weak for hardship and Christina is used to it. At the breakfast table, Christina asks to draw second, then asks to see the sticks. The tube falls; two white sticks roll out.

Her father insists he remembers putting in one red stick and one white stick. Christina says nothing, and simply watches.