Chapter 2

2: 2

Three days later, it was my fifteenth birthday.

Ever since Edwina and Dad left, Mom hadn't allowed my birthday to be celebrated in the house.

The year I turned six, I asked her why, and she dumped my birthday dinner into the trash.

"The day you were born, Edwina was running a high fever. I stayed to take care of you instead of being with her. What right do you have to celebrate a birthday?"

All these years, my birthdays meant gnawing on a cold dinner roll.

But today, the table held pork ribs, sweet-and-sour fish, and a cake covered in mango.

Mom propped her phone up on the table and started a video call.

No one answered on the other end.

She scooped out a slice of cake anyway, still smiling.

"Edwina, today is your sister's birthday. Mom is celebrating it with her for you."

I didn't open my mouth.

The year I turned six, a bite of mango nearly suffocated me.

The doctor warned me again and again never to touch it.

"I'm allergic."

"Your sister loves mango most of all."

"But today is my birthday."

Her smile faded.

"When Edwina was little, she never even saw a cake. What's wrong with you eating one in her place, just once?"

She gripped my chin and shoved the cake into my mouth.

I fought with everything I had, and the chair crashed to the floor.

"Swallow it. She never got to have this. What gives you the right to turn your nose up at it?"

My lips and throat started itching almost at once.

I spat out the cake and stumbled toward the medicine cabinet.

The epinephrine pen was gone. Only the empty box was left.

Mom held up her phone and filmed.

"Don't put on a show. Edwina washed dishes all night with a high fever. You eat two bites of cake and you're dying?"

I fumbled for my phone to call for help, and she snatched it away.

She aimed it at my swollen face and pressed record.

"Edwina, your sister ate your favorite cake today."

"She's learned to behave, too."

I threw the door open and fell out into the hallway.

Renata heard the noise and came running, putting herself between me and Mom, who was chasing after me.

"She can't even breathe. And you still want to drag her back inside?"

By the time the paramedics arrived, I'd already lost consciousness.

When I came to, there was a needle taped into the back of my hand.

The doctor said ten more minutes and they wouldn't have been able to save me.

Renata covered my medical bill. She held my hand and asked, low, whether I was treated like this often.

Before I could answer, the door to the room opened.

Mom brought in a man named Lambert.

He ran the teen behavioral training center, and he was also a consultant for Mom's company.

"Summer, your mother says you deliberately ate food you're allergic to, to scare your parents?"

"She forced it into my mouth."

Consultant Lambert wrote only a few lines in the chart.

"Adolescents often mistake discipline for harm."

Renata stood up, furious.

Mom, though, played a video.

It started from the moment I began struggling, so you couldn't see her prying my mouth open.

On the screen, I knocked over the chair, clawed at my neck, ran for the medicine cabinet. It looked exactly like someone suddenly losing control.

Renata insisted on calling the police, but Mom cried right there in front of the doctor.

"Her sister isn't here, and this child has always been jealous. I was only afraid it would blow up and ruin the rest of her life."

Mom took me home that same day and locked the emergency medication in the safe.

"Run again, and I'll have Consultant Lambert come collect you."

Passing the trash can, I saw a delivery bag from France.

Inside were a blue scarf, a birthday card, and a voice recorder.

The card was in Edwina's handwriting.

"Summer, happy fifteenth birthday."

"Mom said you don't want anything from me, but I wanted to try one more time."

I pressed play on the recorder. First came Edwina's broken sobbing, then nothing but harsh static.

That recording had been edited.

The water in the bathroom cut off.

Mom came out and spotted the scarf at once.

"Give it here."

"If Edwina was reaching out to me, why did you tell me she hated me?"

Mom didn't answer.

She grabbed the scarf and reached straight for the gas burner.

I lunged to grab it back, and the flame licked the back of my hand, raising a row of blisters in an instant.

"You're never to take anything from her again."

I caught her wrist, and she twisted my arm back and pinned me against the edge of the stove.

The firelight lit her face, and there wasn't a trace of hesitation in her eyes.

The scarf burned down to a charred lump.

Edwina hadn't forgotten me.

Mom was the one who'd been turning us away from each other all along.