At 6:12 on the fourth morning after my C-section, I found my mother packing the suitcase she had promised would stay in my house for six weeks.

The ring came at ten-fifteen on a Tuesday morning during the third week. It wasn't Carol. It was Megan.

I hadn't spoken to my younger sister since the screenshot of her holding her iced coffee had burned itself into my retinas. I stared at the phone vibrating against the wood of the nursing glider. Grace was sleeping against my chest, her tiny mouth slack, while Ava slumbered fitfully beside me.

I swiped to answer. "Hello?"

"Rach! Oh, thank God you picked up," Megan’s voice flooded the earpiece, high-pitched and vibrating with manic energy. "Mom is driving me completely out of my mind."

I said nothing. The silence hung between us, thick and heavy, but Megan had never been trained to read silence.

"She’s been rearranging my kitchen cabinets for three days straight," Megan vented, the sound of crinkling takeout bags in the background. "I told her I wanted the mugs by the espresso machine, and she put them above the fridge! And now she's sulking in the guest room because I told her she was suffocating me. Can you believe her? Can you please call her and tell her to back off? She always listens to you."

A bubble of cold, incredulous laughter formed in my chest, threatening to tear my throat.

"Megan," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "Do you know what today is?"

"Uh... Tuesday?"

"It’s twenty-one days since I was cut open hip to hip."

A brief hesitation on the line. "Well, yeah, Mom said the delivery went fine."

"I have two infants. Evan works ten hours a day. I cannot pick up a laundry basket. My abdominal muscles haven't fused back together. And you are calling me to complain that our mother—who walked out on my postpartum recovery to unpack your throw pillows—is annoying you?"

"Rachel, don't be like that," Megan’s tone shifted instantly from whiny to defensive. "You think everything is a competition! Mom said you had Evan. I literally have *no one*. Brett broke my heart and left me with a two-bedroom lease! You have a husband and a house and two healthy kids. You don't have to be so mean."

"She had movers, Megan. I saw the shirts."

"What?"

"The photo she posted. You had professional movers carrying your furniture. You didn't need her to save you. You just didn't want to be alone for forty-eight hours."

"You're unbelievable," Megan spat, her voice trembling with manufactured outrage. "You’ve always resented me. Mom warned me you’d get weird after the babies came. 'Rachel thinks she’s the only person who’s ever had a child.' That’s what she said."

The world seemed to stop spinning on its axis for a fraction of a second. The cold settled deep into my marrow, absolute and final.

*Mom warned me you’d get weird.*

"Lose my number, Megan," I whispered.

"Excuse me?!"

"Lose my number. Don't call me to complain about the mother you stole. Keep her. She’s all yours."