Claire didn't say anything. There didn't seem to be anything true she could say that would make it better, and she was tired of saying things that weren't true.
"Can I tell you something?" Madison asked.
"Okay."
"I don't even want to go on the ski trip." Madison picked at a loose thread on her pajama pants. "I don't really like the Patterson girls. Brooke is kind of mean. But Mom's friends with Mrs. Patterson, and she says it's important, she says those are the kind of people who matter, and every time I try to say I don't want to do something she gets this look, like I'm letting her down, and I can't stand it." She looked up. "Do you know what it's like to have someone watching you all the time? Like every single thing you do is being graded?"
"No," Claire said honestly. "I know what it's like to have no one watching at all."
Madison flinched as if she'd been struck. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"Yeah," she said. "I guess that's worse."
"I don't know if it's worse. I think it's just different." Claire folded the corner of the quilt back over. "I used to be so jealous of you. Like, all the time. I used to think if I was prettier, or funnier, or if I did dance instead of reading, she'd look at me the way she looks at you."
"And now?"
Claire thought about it. "Now I think she doesn't really look at you either. I think she looks at someone she wants you to be."
Her sister was quiet for a long time. Then she leaned over, the way she hadn't since she was small, and put her head on Claire's shoulder.
"I'm sorry," Madison whispered. "For all of it. For the big room and the recital and the stupid party with the DJ. I'm sorry I never noticed."
"It wasn't your job to notice. You were a kid."
"You were a kid too."
Claire opened her mouth to say something, and found that she couldn't, and so instead she put her arm around her sister and held her while she cried. It occurred to her, distantly, that she couldn't remember the last time they had hugged. Years. Maybe since the summer at the lake in Vermont, when Madison was four and afraid of the dock, and Claire had held her hand all the way to the end of it.
After a while Madison sat up and pushed the necklace box toward her. "Put it on."
"Now?"
"Yes, now. Grandma's mom or whoever wore it at her wedding. It's not supposed to sit in a box."
Claire opened the box. The sapphire caught the lamplight and held it, a deep, clear blue, nearly the color of her grandmother's eyes. Her fingers were clumsy with the clasp, and Madison knelt up on the bed behind her and fastened it, and then turned her by the shoulders to look in the mirror on the back of the door.