Chapter 3: The Price of Being Forgotten

After Corbin left, my mother sent someone to a Fifth Avenue boutique that very night to order Emma’s engagement gown.

Emma’s gifts included a large trust fund, a house on Long Island, and the deed to a Manhattan apartment.

My mother still felt it wasn’t enough.

She was certain Emma would marry into the Sinclair family, and her trousseau had to be impressive.

She couldn’t have those Upper East Side women gossiping.

In my last life, when I married into the Sinclair family, my mother had shaken my hand away.

“Enough. Are you satisfied now? Your sister is already this upset, and you have the nerve to stand there looking so pleased with yourself.”

“Don’t think becoming Mrs. Sinclair means you can lord it over her for the rest of your life.”

In this life, she was busy ordering Emma’s gown, booking florists, and buying the limited-edition bags Emma liked.

She said she had to be sensitive to Emma’s feelings.

She’d never once considered mine.

I glanced at the lit-up living room in the distance and drew my bedroom curtains.

I was about to turn off the light when my mother’s personal assistant, Lauren, knocked on the door.

My eyes lit up.

For a foolish moment, I thought my mother had finally remembered me.

But after Lauren spoke, I realized how naive that was.

My mother hadn’t remembered me.

She wanted me to transfer the trust fund in my name to Emma.

In my last life, my mother had left me only a pair of pearl earrings she didn’t like.

“You need to understand, this family’s future belongs to your sister. You’re lucky to get anything. Don’t be greedy.”

In the end, my grandmother couldn’t stand it.

She went to speak to my mother privately, then transferred more money to me from her own account.

“Esme and Emma are both your daughters,” my grandmother had said to my mother. “If you do this, aren’t you afraid they’ll hate each other one day?”

My mother had complained in a low voice.

“If it weren’t for Esme, I wouldn’t have fallen back then. Maybe I could have had another child.”

My grandmother just looked at her.

“The one who pushed you that day was Emma, not Esme.”

My mother paused, her lips moving.

“…It wasn’t Emma’s fault. It was Esme…”

My grandmother shook her head.

“Louise, sooner or later you’ll regret this.”

After that, my grandmother often sent someone to the apartment where I lived.

She would send me the chocolate I liked, buy me dresses, and deposit money into my account.

Her assistant came once a week to ask if I needed anything, what I wanted to eat, or if I had any message for my grandmother.

I squeezed the old safe key I carried with me, the one my grandmother had given me.

Then I opened the drawer and took out the pair of pearl earrings my mother had given me.

“Lauren,” I said, handing her the box, “this is the gift my mother gave me. Please give it back to her.”

Lauren took the box, looking as if she wanted to say something, but ultimately held her tongue.

Early the next morning, before I was even awake, my mother stormed into my bedroom and dragged me out of bed.

“Esme, I told you to transfer your share of the fund to Emma, and you send me back these cheap old earrings?”

“Are you trying to humiliate me?”

My mother threw the earrings at me.

I looked at her.

Two seconds passed before I bent down to pick them up.

I had never imagined a mother could say such things to her own daughter.