Sienna had learned early that love in her family came with receipts.
Not literal ones at first.
When she was twelve, it came as Marjorie standing in the kitchen with a shutoff notice in one hand and a smile that looked too tired to be real.
When she was sixteen, it came as Brielle crying over a school trip deposit and Marjorie saying, “Your sister just needs this one thing.”
When Sienna was twenty-nine, it came as an elegant catering venue in Columbus, a final balance invoice, and a cream envelope hidden inside the inner pocket of an olive-green tactical jacket.
That jacket had been with her longer than most people had.
It had been dragged through airports, logistics warehouses, emergency overnight jobs, and the kind of contracts that paid well only because they expected your body to forgive everything.
Sienna liked it because it was practical.
Hidden pockets.
Reinforced seams.
A zipper that never stuck.
More than once, Marjorie had wrinkled her nose at it and asked why her oldest daughter insisted on dressing like she was always one step away from disaster.
Sienna never answered honestly.
The honest answer was that being useful in that family meant always being prepared to carry something heavy.
Brielle’s wedding was six days away.
For a year, Marjorie had treated the event like proof that the family was finally becoming what she had always wanted people to think they were.
Respectable.
Elegant.
Chosen.
The venue in Columbus had chandeliers, marble floors, gold lettering on the contracts, and a coordinator who said “investment” whenever she meant “money.”
Brielle loved all of it.
She loved the champagne tower, the ivory roses, the rented string quartet, the hand-calligraphed menus, and the fact that everyone kept telling her she deserved a perfect day.
Sienna believed that too.
Or she had tried to.
She had watched her little sister try on dresses under soft boutique lights and remembered a four-year-old Brielle asleep against her shoulder during one of Marjorie’s long crying spells after their father left.
