Chapter 1 - The Daughter Who Could Take It
“Get up, Merritt. It was a joke. God, you really will do anything for attention.”
My younger sister, Sloan, stood three steps above me on a marble staircase, laughing while I lay twisted on the floor below.
I couldn't feel my right foot.
My medical brace had shifted sideways beneath my blush-pink bridesmaid dress. Every attempt to move sent pain through my knee so intense that I couldn't finish a sentence.
And somewhere behind me, a string quartet was still playing.
Twenty minutes earlier, we had been rehearsing the grand entrance for Sloan's wedding at a historic luxury estate outside Newport, Rhode Island.
Now I was lying at the bottom of the staircase, trying to understand why my own sister had deliberately knocked me down.
I was thirty-four years old. Eight weeks earlier, I had undergone major reconstructive surgery on my right knee after tearing my anterior cruciate ligament.
My orthopedic surgeon had been very specific.
No sudden twisting. No unsupported stairs. No unnecessary weight on the healing joint.
A second serious injury could undo the reconstruction and permanently affect my mobility.
Sloan knew all of that.
She also knew I had spent two months sleeping with my leg elevated, taking prescription pain medication, and attending physical therapy three times a week.
But none of that had mattered when she decided my orthopedic brace would ruin her wedding photographs.
“Somebody call an ambulance!” a woman shouted.
A champagne glass shattered nearby.
Several guests rushed forward, but Sloan remained on the stairs, one hand resting on the banister, smiling as though she had just delivered a particularly clever punchline.
Then my mother appeared.
Blythe was wearing a silver evening gown that probably cost more than my first used car. She pushed between two concerned guests and leaned over me.
For one ridiculous second, I thought she was going to ask whether I could breathe.
Instead, she grabbed my arm.
“Merritt, stop this. You're embarrassing us.”
I stared at her.
“Mom, something broke.”
“Don't exaggerate. Your sister barely touched you.”
I tried to lift my right leg.
Nothing happened.
“Please. I need a hospital.”
My father, Judson, stepped into view and adjusted his cuff links.
“Your sister has spent a year planning this wedding. Could you manage not to make everything about yourself for one evening?”
I couldn't answer.
Not because I had nothing to say.
Because I was trying not to pass out.
Across the foyer, I saw Thatcher, Sloan's fiancé, standing near the staircase.
He was holding a small velvet ring box.
Unlike my parents, he wasn't looking at me.
He was staring directly at Sloan.
And the expression on his face frightened me almost as much as the pain in my knee.
He looked as though he had just discovered he was marrying a stranger.
I didn't understand what he had heard.
Not yet.
But I would.
And when I did, I would finally understand that my sister hadn't simply lost her temper.
She had planned the entire thing.
To understand how a woman could injure her sister in front of a hundred wedding guests and expect everyone to laugh, you need to understand the family I grew up in.
In our house, Sloan was the daughter who deserved everything.
I was the daughter who was supposed to provide it.
Our parents had two entirely different sets of rules.
When Sloan wanted something, it was an investment in her happiness.
When I needed something, it was an inconvenience.
My earliest clear memory of that arrangement came during my senior year of high school.
I had spent six months saving tips from my weekend restaurant job to buy an emerald-green prom dress.
It wasn't designer.
It didn't need to be.
It fit perfectly, and for once, I had bought something beautiful without asking my parents for a dollar.
Two days before prom, I came home and found the dress scattered across my bedroom floor.
Sloan, then thirteen, had taken kitchen scissors to it.
The bodice was shredded. One sleeve was missing. She had cut the skirt into uneven strips because she wanted material for a fashion project.
When I demanded to know why, she shrugged.
“I was experimenting.”
Our mother came upstairs, surveyed the damage, and sighed.
“Oh, Merritt. Stop acting like somebody died.”
“That dress cost me six months of savings.”
“Sloan is exploring her creativity. You should encourage her.”
“Then buy her fabric!”
Mom's expression changed immediately.
“Don't speak to me that way. And apologize to your sister for yelling.”
I wore an old department-store dress to prom.
Sloan never replaced the one she destroyed.
Five years later, my parents helped themselves to $3,000 I had saved toward a used Honda Civic.
I'd earned that money waiting tables through school, coming home with sore feet and clothes that smelled like coffee and fryer oil.
The money was in an old joint account my parents had opened when I was underage. I hadn't realized my father still had unrestricted access.
I discovered it when my debit card was declined at a grocery store.
The balance was zero.
I called Dad from the parking lot.
“Where's my money?”
He didn't bother pretending to misunderstand.
“Sloan needed a security deposit for an apartment near campus.”
“You took my savings?”
“She can't be expected to live somewhere unsafe.”
“And I can?”
“You're resourceful, Merritt. Take the bus for another year.”
I stood beside my shopping cart, looking at the groceries I'd just had to abandon.
He continued.
“Your sister needs a decent start in life. You already know how to take care of yourself.”
That was the family philosophy.
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Sloan deserved help because she needed it.
I didn't deserve help because I'd learned to survive without it.
