My mother explained that Sienna had been invited to present a signature design at Saturday's private reception ahead of the Aurora gala. The invitation had been arranged through one of her friends. The dress would be introduced as part of Sienna's collection, and afterward, if everything went well, my sister might finally get the career she'd been trying to build.
"It's my application piece," I said. "They already have my sketches."
"Then you can make another one," my mother replied. "You have talent. Sienna has contacts. This is how the world works."
I looked at her for a long time. "You think my talent is something she can take because she knows the right people?"
She sighed. "You always turn everything into a competition."
"I'm the one who entered the competition."
Sienna stepped forward, holding the gown against her champagne-colored dress. She looked beautiful, confident, entirely at ease with the thing she was doing. "I can explain to the organizers that we worked together," she said. "Once I'm established, I'll find a place for you in my studio. You could do the sewing."
I had never felt so far away from my own family. What she offered was not partnership. It was permission to remain invisible while she used my name only when it was convenient.
"Put it down," I told her.
She didn't. My mother moved into the space between us, her expression hardening, and said those words about family, gratitude, and sacrifice that had ended so many arguments before this one. I reached for the gown, but Sienna pulled it back. In the confusion, the skirt brushed the edge of the sewing table, and I heard a tiny bead strike the floor. I watched it roll beneath the wardrobe while my sister carried the dress out of the room.
After they left, I stood staring at the empty hanger. My tears fell onto the purple shirt I'd been wearing at work. The room looked untouched except for the missing dress, but it had changed completely. Every pin, every pattern, every spool of thread seemed suddenly to belong to a person I had been only a few minutes earlier: a girl who believed working hard enough would eventually make her family proud.
My phone buzzed. It was a message from Sienna, accompanied by a photo of herself holding the gown in the foyer. *Don't ruin this for us. Be a good sister for once.*
I didn't answer. I took a photograph of the empty dress form, then sat down at the sewing table and opened my application folder. The photographs were still there. My pattern book was still there. And somewhere inside the dress Sienna thought she owned was a little folded strip of silk she had never seen.