I felt as though she’d slapped me.
“Oh.”
“Mom, that’s not—”
“No. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t.
I stood.
“Apparently I’m the last person in this family who understands what’s happening.”
“Isabella.”
Mark caught my wrist.
“Wait.”
Zoe was crying now.
“I didn’t mean you’re ugly.”
I laughed once.
“That’s comforting.”
“Mom, please.”
Mark turned toward her.
“Tell her.”
Zoe wiped her face.
“Miranda said something.”
There it was.
“What?”
Zoe looked terrified.
“Back in September, I was at Dad’s. Miranda was doing her makeup. I was sitting in the bathroom talking to her.”
Mark went completely still.
“She looked at me in the mirror and said I had your face.”
“Okay.”
“All of it.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then she said…”
Zoe stared at the floor.
“She said, ‘You’d better hope you age better than she did.'”
Nobody moved.
Mark’s face changed.
“She said that?”
“She was joking.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Yes.”
One sentence.
Probably 11 seconds of Miranda’s life.
Five months of Zoe’s.
“I came home and looked at myself,” Zoe whispered. “And then I came down here.”
She pointed toward the box.
“I found that picture.”
The green dress.
“I thought you looked beautiful.”
I swallowed.
“Then what was the problem?”
