The night before my sister’s wedding, my mother stood over my bed with a pair of sewing scissors and cut off my hair.

I woke up to the sound before I understood what it was.

A dry metallic scrape.

A tug so hard it pulled tears into my eyes before I was fully conscious.

Then cold air touched the back of my neck.

I sat up too fast, disoriented from the sleeping pill I had taken, and saw auburn strands sliding down my white comforter.

My mother had gathered my hair in one fist.

She was sawing through it with the scissors she kept in her mending basket.

“What are you doing?” I tried to say it loudly, but it came out thick and stupid with sleep.

She didn’t stop.

“Fixing a problem,” she said.

Another hard slice.

Another heavy fall of hair.

Twenty years of being the quiet daughter in one jagged pile across my lap.

I stared at her.

Not because I thought she would explain.

Because somewhere inside me, something was already shutting down.

People talk about shock like it’s a scream.

Mine was silence.

By the time my father appeared in the doorway, drawn by the sound or maybe by instinct, the damage was done.

My hair had been long enough to reach my waist.

Thick, natural auburn, impossible to miss in a room.

Now one side sat above my shoulder, the other hacked to my collarbone.

My mother stepped back, breathing hard.

“She was going to upstage Chloe,” she said, as if she were reporting a fire she had extinguished.

My father looked at me.

Then at the bed.

Then at the strands on the floor.

He shrugged.

Actually shrugged.

“Wear a hat,” he said.

“For God’s sake, Paige, don’t make this into drama.

Your sister is marrying a billionaire tomorrow.

We are not ruining the mood over hair.”

I remember putting my hand up to my head and feeling the butchered ends.

They felt dry and blunt and unreal, like they belonged to someone else.

My mother leaned closer, face hard with contempt.

“For once in your life,” she said, “be useful without being seen.”

Useful.

That had always been my role in the family.

Chloe was the star.

Chloe was the one people photographed even before she learned how to pose.

Chloe was the daughter my mother dressed in silk and called radiant.

Chloe was the one my father introduced to his friends with both hands on her shoulders, as if she were his best investment.

I was the one who solved problems and paid bills.

My sister’s wedding had eaten an entire year of my life.

When the venue wanted a larger deposit because the Sterling guest list kept growing, I covered it.

When the florist called three days before the rehearsal dinner because imported peonies had doubled in price, I paid the shortage.

When Chloe changed her mind about the bridesmaids’ dresses after seeing photos from someone else’s wedding, I stayed up until two in the morning arranging rush alterations.

When the boutique refused to release her gown at the final fitting because there was still a fifteen-thousand-dollar balance on it, my mother froze, my father started sweating, and Chloe burst into tears because she said stress made her puffy.

I