I swear I didn’t know she robbed Quinn!” “You lying snake,” Frances screamed, her face shattering.

“You told me to get her the Rubicon!

You told me Quinn wouldn’t need the money because she’d just settle for a state school!” Presley dropped her Jeep keys on the concrete with a pathetic clatter and burst into loud, heaving sobs — not for Quinn, I could see, and not for any of it, but for the sudden loss of her status symbol.

When Frances reached for her golden child’s arm for support, Doreen recoiled and swatted her hand away in disgust.

The empire of favoritism had eaten itself alive in under three minutes.

I had wondered, over the years, what my mother thought she was building with all that favoritism — what the endgame was, in her mind, of spending forty years teaching one child she was gold and another he was nothing.