Chapter 3Taming The Sisters Who Scorned Me

After I cleaned up the glass, I saw her sitting on the rug, her heels bleeding onto the fibers. She didn't seem to care.

I went downstairs to grab the first-aid kit.

Margot was in the living room, her wheelchair parked by the floor-to-ceiling windows. she was reading a financial magazine, her glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. She looked up as I passed.

"Are you alright, Casey? Maisie’s moods have been... difficult. I’ll talk to her."

Liar. She had listened to the entire ten-minute tirade from downstairs without lifting a finger. She liked having me as the lightning rod. It kept the storm away from her.

I’d been taking care of them for a month. Maisie was the volatile one, but Margot was the one who truly unnerved me. She was composed, "proper," and terrifyingly smart. She was a top graduate from the same university I attended.

The first time I really "met" her, she was a guest speaker at school. It was raining, and I was hauling a dozen heavy packages for Bennett, my raincoat tucked over the boxes to keep them dry. I slipped on the marble stairs right as she was walking out, surrounded by a swarm of admirers.

She had knelt down, her silk dress hitting the wet pavement, and helped me gather the boxes. She was so gentle then. I actually thought she was different.

But then, a week into this job, I took her to the park. She complained about the sun on her legs, so I draped my own jacket over her lap while I ran to the kiosk to buy a proper throw.

When I got back, my jacket was gone.

"A kid ran by and grabbed it," she said, her voice smooth and sympathetic. "I’m so sorry, Casey. People can be so cruel."

Later that evening, as I rolled her toward the exit, I saw a flash of navy blue in a trash can near the gate. It was my jacket. A $120 jacket I’d saved up for.

I asked a gardener nearby if he’d seen who threw it away.

"The lady in the chair," he said, not even looking up from his shears.

That was when I knew. Margot didn't just dislike me; she found me subhuman. My belongings were filth in her presence. I took the jacket home, washed it three times, and vowed never to let her see me wear it again.