"It's my money," I said.
"It's our account."
"It's my money. I made it. I made all of it."
"I know you did, and that's," she pressed her hands flat on the table. "That's exactly why I can do this. Because it's there. Because you were smart and you saved it and it's there. Honey. Listen. You are fourteen. There are going to be other camps. There are going to be so many other camps for you. You are going to have scholarships thrown at you, you are going to go to whatever college you want, you're the smart one, everybody knows you're the smart one. Ms. Szilagyi emails me about you. Nobody emails me about Callie except to tell me what she owes."
"So Callie gets it because she's dumb?"
"Do not," Mom said, very quietly, "say that about your sister."
"I didn't. You did."
She looked at me then. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying. Mom doesn't cry in front of us. She cries in the car or on the back steps. "This is it for her," she said. "Do you understand? This is the year. The man from Kentucky is going to be in Orlando. Junior year is when they look. If she doesn't go, she's off the routine, and Mckenna takes her spot, and next year they'll build the routine around Mckenna, and that's it. That's it for her. She doesn't have a lake. She doesn't have a, a field station. She has this."
"She could have something else."
"She could," Mom said. "Sure. She could. Or she could be me."
I didn't say anything. I didn't know, then, what she meant. I know now. I'll tell it in a minute.