“And as the matriarch, I wanted my granddaughters to have something they’ll carry forever.” She picked a small, scuffed jewelry box off the table — its faux-velvet coating worn at the hinges — and marched over to Quinn with a smile that never touched her eyes.

“For you, my sweet Quinn,” she purred, all but dropping the flimsy box into my daughter’s hands.

Quinn, forever trying to find a scrap of good in this gene pool, opened it.

Inside lay a thin, tarnished metal chain, dull as gray aluminum — and, worse than the cheap alloy, still stuck to the silk lining was a fluorescent orange clearance sticker. $14.99. Quinn swallowed hard.

I watched her throat work to suppress the shock, her eyes glazing with tears she refused to shed, and then she looked up into my mother’s triumphant face.

“Thank you, Grandma,” she whispered, her voice fracturing.