Chapter 1

The rain over Vancouver had been coming down for a solid week.

I stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, watching my phone screen light up and go dark, light up and go dark.

An unfamiliar international number, calling three times.

The fourth time, I answered.

"Sherry, it's me. Nicholas Acevedo."

I said nothing.

"Sherry, don't hang up, please." His voice came fast, ingratiating. "That old family brownstone of ours is getting torn down for redevelopment. The payout came through. Five hundred million. Mom told me to find you, she wants you to come home and split the money."

Five hundred million.

I stared out the window at the maples thrashing sideways in the rain, and suddenly I laughed out loud.

Seven years ago, when my mother stole forty-two million out of my account to buy him that brownstone, that wasn't what she'd said.

Back then what she'd said was: You're just a girl. What good is it, you making all that money? Sooner or later you'll belong to some other family. Your brother's different. He's an Acevedo.

My name is Sharon Acevedo. I'm thirty-five this year.

If I had to sum up the first half of my life in one sentence, it would be this: my mother gave birth to me, but my mother never raised me.

It sounds like a riddle, but that's just how it was.

I have early memories. By the time I was three I could already remember a lot. That was the year my mother was pregnant with my brother, lying in bed with that big belly, snapping at me over nothing.

"Get away from me. Stop hovering where I can see you."

"Go stay at your grandmother's. Quit bothering me."

I didn't understand why back then. I only understood later. What she was carrying was a son, precious. I was a girl, worthless.

The day Nicholas was born, I was dropped off at the neighbors' house.

I sat alone in a corner of their yard, gnawing on half a cold leftover bread roll, listening to the firecrackers going off over at our place. They cracked and popped for a good half hour, rattling the windowpanes.

Later the neighbor lady told me: Your brother's here, eight pounds two ounces, a big healthy boy. Your mom's over the moon. Your dad went out and bought twenty strings of firecrackers.

Twenty strings.

When I was born, there wasn't a single one. My grandmother told me about it. She said my mother lay in bed crying, saying, how is it another girl, raise her up and she's just money out the door.

My father sat beside her smoking, not saying a word.

From then on, I knew: in this family, Nicholas and I were not the same.

He was a person. I was a weed.

In third grade, something happened that made me see my mother's true face for good.

School started that year, and tuition was due.

My grades were good, first in the whole grade, so the school gave me a scholarship, waived all my fees and tuition, and handed me a hundred dollars on top of it.

I took that hundred dollars home and gave it to my mother.

She counted it, tucked it into her pocket, said, "Guess you're good for something," and that was the end of it.

I remember thinking, a hundred dollars, maybe she'd buy me something with it. The strap on my backpack had snapped and I'd tied it together with string, and the other kids laughed at me. I wanted a new backpack. Nothing fancy, just something for a few dollars.

I opened my mouth, and didn't dare say it.

The next day my mother took Nicholas to the mall.

When they came back that evening, Nicholas had a brand-new action figure in his hands, the plastic packaging glinting under the lights.

"Mom bought it for me!" he crowed at me.

I glanced at the price tag. It hadn't been peeled off yet. A hundred and twenty-eight.

That night I hid under the covers and bit my lip until it bled.

The next day I carried that broken-strapped backpack to school, and at the gate I ran into my homeroom teacher, Ms. Finch.

She looked at my backpack and said nothing.

When school let out that afternoon, she stopped me and handed me a new blue backpack.

"The school's giving these out. Take it, use it."

I knew the school wasn't giving them out. The school never gave out backpacks.

But I took it, and said thank you.

From then on, I knew: in this family, if I wanted something, don't count on my mother. There was only myself.

In middle school, I skipped a grade.

The year of the placement exams, I placed third in the whole city and got into the best high school.

My mother said nothing.

It was the neighbors who came to congratulate us, saying, your daughter's really going somewhere. My mother forced out a smile and said, "A girl. What's the use of all that schooling."

I was standing right there. I heard it.

That summer, Nicholas was moving up to middle school and didn't test into a good one. My mother pulled strings, spent twelve thousand dollars, and got him squeezed into my old school.

Twelve thousand dollars. That was more than half a year of my father's pay.

My mother handed it over without a blink.

"Your brother isn't like you," she said. "He's a boy. He's the one who'll carry the family someday."

That summer, I dug up an old photograph at home.

In the photo was a tiny baby in a red bib, lying in a hospital bed. On the back was a line of writing: Nicholas, July 15, 1990.

I went through every photo album. I never found a picture from my first month.

I asked my grandmother, where are the photos of me as a baby?

Grandmother paused, then said: Your mother said photographs were a waste of money. There weren't any.

Through all three years of high school, I studied like my life depended on it.

Not because I loved studying. Because I knew that if my grades slipped, my mother would never let me keep going.

She'd said it more than once: "A girl only needs to finish middle school. Get out there early and earn some money, help out the family."

Every time she said it, I studied harder.

I had to stay first. I had to win the scholarship. I had to get the fees waived.

Because the one time I bombed an exam, the one time the family had to pay, she'd use it to pull me out of school.

Senior year, the city held academic olympiads, and I took first place in both math and physics.

That meant I could be admitted to a top university on recommendation.

When the news reached home, the neighbors all came to congratulate us. My mother's face finally showed a little warmth, but the moment she closed the door, it vanished.

"What's the use of getting recommended? Doesn't college still cost money?"

"Full scholarship," I said. "Tuition fully waived, plus a stipend every month."

She paused, then gave a little snort. "Well, that's more like it."

That summer, the acceptance letter arrived, the gold college crest gleaming in the sunlight.

I held the letter and thought: I can finally leave this house.

My mother was in the kitchen cooking, not lifting her head.

"The acceptance letter came." I stood in the kitchen doorway.

"Put it over there," she said. "Good timing, come help me pick over these vegetables."

That night there was no celebration, no firecrackers, nothing.

Four years later, Nicholas took his SATs, scored a three hundred ninety, not even close to the lowest cutoff. My mother pulled strings and paid to get him into some private junior college.

That night, the family threw a banquet, three tables of it.

I was in my dorm at a university in another city, and I heard about it over a phone call from my roommate.

"Your mom called the dorm. She wants you to come back for the banquet."

I didn't answer.