My sister wore bridal white to my wedding because she wanted everyone looking at her and HUMILITIATE ME. “Surprise,” she whispered, waiting for me to fall apart. I smiled back. She had no idea I had bought that dress and sent it anonymously to her hotel. Then the pastor stepped forward with a sealed envelope. “Your mother left something for you.” Our mother had died eight months earlier—and left instructions for exactly this moment.

Mom’s favorite color.

It matched the scarf resting on her empty chair and reminded me of the dresses she wore in the photographs where she looked happiest. Paige had expected to stand beside me in white and force everyone to compare us, but there was no comparison to make.

“Don’t,” Paige whispered as I approached.

I stopped in front of her and picked up the letter.

“I didn’t know,” she said.

“Didn’t know what?”

“That Mom saw me like that.”

I handed the letter back.

“She saw both of us.”

Paige shook her head.

“No. She saw you. She always saw you.”

There it was.

The sentence beneath almost every argument we had ever had.

Paige looked directly at me, no longer caring about the guests surrounding us.

“You were the daughter she was proud of. Clara got good grades. Clara remembered everyone’s birthday. Clara helped when Mom was sick. Clara never caused trouble.”

Her voice cracked, but she continued.

“And I was always the difficult one. Too loud. Too emotional. Too much.”

I could have answered with a list of everything she had done to me. I could have reminded her of the milestones she had disrupted, the cruel jokes she had disguised as humor, or the days she disappeared while Mom was dying.