Chapter 1 - The Screen on the Floor
I’d bought that brand-new iPhone for my niece’s fourteenth birthday. Madison had just discovered it wasn’t the Pro model she wanted, and instead of thanking me, she’d hurled it directly at my face.
My sister Lauren rushed forward, not to check on me, but to wrap Madison in a suffocating embrace. “Oh my God, sweetheart, are you okay? Breathe, baby, breathe.”
I reached up, my fingers brushing against the rapidly swelling knot above my cheek. “Am I invisible?” I asked, my voice trembling between shock and rising fury.
Then our mother, Grandma Ruth, looked at me with cold, disappointed eyes and sighed. “Harriet, look what you made her do.”
I make monsters for a living. Movie monsters, mostly. I stitch rotting bridal gowns, attach silicone boils to screaming stunt doubles, and age wool coats until they look like someone crawled out of a shallow grave. I’ve eaten lunch beside a bucket marked *Spare Ears*. I’ve scrubbed fake arterial blood out of my sneakers, my coffee cups, and my tax paperwork. Not much scares me, and very little turns my stomach.
Apparently, nothing in Hollywood had prepared me for my own flesh and blood.
Madison was Lauren’s only child. We weren't enemies, but my sister possessed a terrifying talent for transforming her own financial emergencies into everyone else’s moral obligations. Lauren ran a fringe UFO-investigation channel, sold quartz crystals wrapped in copper wire, and once charged twenty dollars a head to lead strangers into a damp cornfield to explain why barn owls were surveillance drones. Some months she made enough for groceries; most months she made enough for incense.
Yet Lauren insisted on the finest things for Madison. And by “insisted,” I mean she looked at my steady union paychecks and decided I was an unpaid corporate sponsor.
I don’t have children. I love my quiet bungalow, my studio cluttered with clay busts, and my absolute freedom. Ruth treated my child-free life like an open discount voucher. *“Madison is the closest thing you’ll ever have to a daughter,”* she’d tell me over Sunday dinners. *“You should enjoy spoiling her. Who else are you saving it for?”*
If I dared to point out that a middle schooler didn't need four-hundred-dollar designer sneakers to walk from the sofa to the pantry, Ruth would accuse me of being emotionally stunted.
The pattern was sacred: Lauren demanded, Ruth guilt-tripped, and I paid.
When Madison was small, I genuinely loved it. She used to sit on a stool in my workshop, wide-eyed, watching me mix paint for severed limbs. Once, when she was seven, she asked for a princess gown “but dead,” and I stayed up for three nights sewing tattered silk and distressing faux lace. I bought her craft kits, books, and telescopes.
Then came the middle school shift. Glitter glue turned into high-end beauty blenders. Science kits became gaming consoles. For her thirteenth birthday, Lauren had texted me a color-coded spreadsheet titled *Madison’s Needs*, where every single item in the "Emotionally Significant" column carried a triple-digit price tag.
Two weeks before Madison’s fourteenth birthday, Lauren called while I was pinning faux moss onto a swamp creature.
“Madison wants the new iPhone Pro,” Lauren announced, skipping any greeting.
“She already has a phone. I bought it for her eighth-grade graduation.”
“It’s old, Harriet. It only has two cameras.”
“She’s fourteen. What school project requires cinematic depth-of-field?”
“She’s building an online brand!” Lauren snapped. “Grandma thinks you’re being stingy.”
I held my ground. I agreed to buy the standard new iPhone—top-tier storage, sleek case, beautiful display—but not the Pro.
When I arrived at Ruth’s house that evening, fresh off a fourteen-hour shoot with dry latex still clinging to my knuckles, the living room looked like an influencer’s fever dream. Balloon arches, a ring light, and Madison holding court with three classmates.
When she pulled the silver box from the gift bag, her smile evaporated.
“This isn't the Pro,” she said flatly.
“No, it’s the standard 15,” I answered calmly. “It’s an incredible phone, Maddy.”
“It’s humiliating,” she sneered. “Everyone has the Pro. Why did you even bother?”
When I offered to return it if she didn’t appreciate it, the room erupted. Ruth scolded me for embarrassing the girl in front of her friends. Lauren accused me of ruining her milestone.
Then Madison threw it.
Now, silence hung heavy in the room, punctuated only by Madison’s theatrical sobs against Lauren’s shoulder.
“You need to apologize to her, Harriet,” Lauren barked, glaring at me over her daughter’s head. “Look how shaken she is!”
I didn’t speak. My cheek throbbed. I knelt down on the hardwood to pick up the brand-new, cracked glass rectangle. I intended to put it in my bag, walk out, and return it to the Apple Store for a full refund.
As my fingers lifted the device, the screen illuminated.
A message banner was frozen across the lock screen. It was an unread iMessage from Lauren, sent to Madison exactly two minutes before the box was opened:
May you like
*“If it’s not the Pro, throw a fit. Make a huge scene and cry. She’ll panic, feel guilty in front of your friends, and take you to swap it for the 1TB Pro tonight. Don’t back down.”*
***
