Chapter 1 - Where’s My Present?
Lila entered the living room beside Mason with both hands wrapped around her test paper.
She had been holding it carefully since the final bell.
Ninety-eight.
The highest math score she had ever received.
Mason had a ninety-nine on his science test, and for the entire drive home the two siblings had argued about which score was technically better.
“It’s science,” Mason said as they walked through the front doors of the Bennett mansion. “Science is harder.”
“Not my math.”
“You missed two.”
“You missed one.”
“Exactly.”
Lila laughed.
For three minutes, everything felt normal.
Their father, Andrew Bennett, stood near the dining table with their mother, Claire.
Dorothy sat in one of the cream-colored chairs near the windows.
Mason raised his paper.
“Look! I got a great score!”
Lila lifted hers beside him.
“Me too!”
Claire smiled.
“Oh, wow.”
Andrew took Mason’s paper first.
“Ninety-nine?”
Mason grinned.
Then Andrew looked at Lila’s.
“Ninety-eight. That’s fantastic, sweetheart.”
Lila felt her chest swell.
She had stayed up studying multiplication patterns with Claire two nights earlier.
She had wanted this moment.
Then Claire glanced at Andrew.
Andrew smiled.
“Actually, Mason, we have something for you.”
A black gift box appeared from the sideboard.
Mason’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“Open it,” Andrew said.
Lila leaned closer.
Mason tore away the paper.
Inside was a brand-new flagship smartphone.
The newest 2026 model.
His mouth dropped open.
“No way.”
Andrew laughed.
“Way.”
“Dad!”
Mason threw his arms around him.
Claire hugged him next.
Dorothy stood.
“That’s what hard work earns.”
Mason turned the phone over in both hands.
Lila smiled too.
At first.
She waited.
Maybe hers was somewhere else.
Maybe behind the chair.
Maybe Claire had hidden it because Lila was better at guessing.
Thirty seconds passed.
Nobody reached for another box.
Her smile faded.
She looked at her mother.
Then father.
Then Dorothy.
“Where’s my present?”
The room changed.
Dorothy’s warm expression vanished.
“Your present?”
Lila’s fingers tightened around her test paper.
Dorothy looked her up and down.
“You’re a bad child.”
Andrew shifted uncomfortably.
Claire looked toward the floor.
Lila froze.
“What?”
“You don’t deserve a gift.”
Her eyes immediately burned.
“But I got ninety-eight.”
“That doesn’t erase behavior.”
Lila looked at Andrew.
“Dad?”
He opened his mouth.
Dorothy pointed toward the kitchen.
A mountain of dirty dishes from the family’s lunch sat beside the sink.
“Go wash all those dishes.”
Lila stayed where she was.
Not because she planned to disobey.
She simply couldn’t make her legs move.
Mason was holding a phone worth more than anything she had ever owned.
Her own test paper suddenly felt stupid in her hands.
Dorothy’s voice exploded.
“WHAT ARE YOU STILL STANDING THERE FOR?”
Lila jumped.
“GO! NOW!”
Claire flinched.
Andrew said quietly, “Mom—”
Dorothy turned.
“She needs consequences.”
No one stopped her.
That was the part Lila remembered later.
Not the volume.
The silence after it.
She walked to the kitchen.
Placed her test paper carefully on the counter where it wouldn’t get wet.
Turned on the faucet.
Picked up the first plate.
Behind her, Mason had already powered on the new phone.
“Whoa.”
Andrew moved closer.
Claire did too.
Dorothy smiled proudly.
“Try the camera.”
Mason laughed.
Lila scrubbed dried sauce from a plate.
Her eyes filled.
Behind her came another burst of laughter.
She turned once.
Mason stood in the center of the family.
Everyone around him.
The phone glowing in his hands.
Then she looked back at the sink.
A tear fell onto her wrist.
She kept washing.
Ten minutes later, Mason came quietly into the kitchen.
“Lila?”
She didn’t turn.
“You want to see it?”
“No.”
“I can let you use it.”
“I said no.”
Mason stood there awkwardly.
Then he noticed her test paper.
“Why did Grandma call you bad?”
Lila stopped scrubbing.
She stared at the water.
“I don’t know.”
That wasn’t completely true.
Three days earlier, Lila had gone into Grandpa Thomas’s old study looking for colored pencils.
She had found something inside the bottom drawer.
A blue envelope.
Across the front, in Grandpa’s handwriting:
For Mason and Lila — when the adults are ready to stop arguing.
Lila had opened it.
She had read only one sentence before Dorothy appeared.
Whatever this family gives one child, it must never use money to make the other child feel less loved.
Dorothy had ripped the letter from her hands.
Then told Lila she had no right to go through private things.
Since then, Dorothy had called her dishonest.
Sneaky.
Ungrateful.
Bad.
Lila looked at Mason now.
“I found something.”
“What?”
“Grandpa wrote us a letter.”
Mason’s smile disappeared.
“What letter?”
“Grandma took it.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
Lila whispered:
“Because it said something about us being equal.”
Behind them, Dorothy’s voice came from the living room.
“Mason!”
He looked toward the doorway.
“Come show me the camera.”
Then Dorothy added:
“And leave your sister alone. She’s supposed to be thinking about what she did.”
Mason looked at Lila.
For the first time that afternoon, he didn’t look excited about his phone.
And Lila suddenly understood something that frightened her.
Dorothy had not punished her because of a bad grade.
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She had punished her because of something Grandpa Thomas had written before he died.
Something Dorothy desperately did not want either grandchild to read.
