her purple dress to Olivia’s pink one. A small, uneasy knot formed in my stomach, but I swallowed it down, telling myself not to overreact to a simple coincidence of fashion. It was just a dress, I reasoned; children often want to look like one another. But as the afternoon unfolded, it became painfully clear that this was not about a dress, but about a calculated displacement of my daughter’s joy.
Throughout the games and snacks, my mother showered Olivia with praise, calling her “our little princess” while barely acknowledging
