Chapter 1

When I was ten years old, my mother brought home a filthy girl. From that day on, she stopped loving me.

She gave my brand-new princess bed to her, cancelled my piano lessons, and used the refund to pay for the girl’s private tutoring.

When my dad gently complained on my behalf, my mother slapped him hard right in front of our neighbors. She demanded a divorce and kicked both of us out, abandoning me without a second thought.

"You and Daisy have never wanted for anything in your lives!" she shrieked. "I just wanted you two to share a tiny crumb of your privilege with Chloe. What is so wrong with that?"

Everyone in the neighborhood praised her as a saint, while my dad and I were branded as heartless, selfish capitalists.

Shortly after, my dad took me and left her.

Ten years later, the girl my mother adopted ran off with every last penny of her savings.

On a freezing, snowy day, my mother showed up at the doorstep of our new home, begging my dad and me to take her in.

My mother, Valerie, stood outside the security screen door, begging me. "Daisy, please open the door. I just want to come home."

I shook my head. "You are not my mother. You are not welcome here."

I kept the safety chain tightly latched, leaving only a crack about four inches wide.

Valerie was wearing a pilled, dark red down jacket that looked decades old. Her hair was messily pinned behind her head, and her face was heavily wrinkled.

In her hand, she held a battered reusable grocery bag containing a few bruised apples.

"Daisy, I’m your biological mother! You came out of my own body. How can you be this heartless?"

Seeing that I had no intention of letting her in, Valerie reached through the gap, trying to grab my wrist.

I stepped back to avoid her touch, looking at her with a cold, blank expression.

"My dad isn’t home."

"I know. I saw him drive out."

Valerie peered desperately through the crack. Her eyes scanned the entryway, lingering on the orthopedic maternity slippers on the shoe rack, and then on the pink car keys hanging on the wall.

"Your father betrayed me. He married that Sarah woman, didn’t he? I heard he bought this three-bedroom condo, too."

Her voice suddenly took on that familiar, sharp edge.

"Where did he get the money? When we divorced, he didn't even take the fifty-thousand-dollar savings account."

"Daisy, half of that condo belongs to me as marital property. He owes me!"

"That was ten years ago," I cut her off.

"The court papers were crystal clear. You got the house, you got the savings, and you didn't have to take on any of the debt. The only thing you gave up was custody of me."

"In the last ten years, have you paid a single cent in child support?"

Valerie’s cheek twitched. She tried to shove the bag of bruised apples through the crack in the door.

"Things were hard for me back then! Chloe needed school supplies, she needed college prep—everything cost money. I was doing charity. I was doing God's work!"

"You've never had to worry about food or clothes since you were a kid. Why can’t you understand the sacrifices I made?"

Always the same old speech.

Even after ten whole years—even after the girl she cherished like a treasure ran off with her house equity and retirement fund—Valerie’s first instinct was still to stand on her moral high ground and look down on everyone else for not being "kind" enough.

"Where is Chloe?" I asked flatly.

Valerie froze. A flash of pure venom crossed her eyes, quickly replaced by a pathetic, victimized look.

"That ungrateful leech... She forged my signature on a visa, mortgaged my house to some shady private lenders, took all the cash, and fled the country."

"Daisy, I have nowhere to go. It’s freezing outside. It’s fourteen degrees. Can you really watch your own mother freeze to death on the street?"

"That’s the daughter you chose."

I looked down at her cheap leather boots. They were covered in slush, and the soles were splitting open.

"Ten years ago, when you kicked my dad and me out of the house, it was snowing just like this."

Valerie gasped, her lips trembling as she tried to argue.

I didn't want to hear another word. I leaned forward to slam the door.

"Daisy! You can't be this heartless! I am your mother! I almost bled to death on the delivery table giving birth to you!"

She screamed, throwing her entire body weight against the door to keep it open.

The hinges let out a harsh, scraping shriek. In the entryway mirror, I caught a glimpse of my own reflection.

At twenty years old, my features had matured, and my eyes were calm and steady.

Ten years ago, standing before a very similar door, I could only bury my face in my dad’s old canvas jacket, crying and begging her not to throw away my little bed.