There's this thing that my mom keeps repeating to me.

"I love my children equally. I will always treat you and Brielle the same."

It's true that I get everything my sister, Brielle Montgomery, has since we were children. If Brielle has a new backpack, I do too. If Brielle goes for piano lessons, I'll be given the opportunity to attend the same lessons.

When I go home for the holidays, my mom digs out two beautiful shopping bags sporting luxury brand logos. With a smile on her face, she hands them to us.

"I specifically went to the store to buy you nice coats. Both of you get a coat each. I'll have you know that coats with wool linings are worth thousands of dollars. I don't even have the heart to wear one of these coats. I only bought these coats for you two."

As I gaze at the expensive-looking coat, I feel warmth surging into my heart.

But when I try on the coat, I feel a weird, scratchy sensation coming from my armpits. After flipping the coat inside out, I notice a few strands of long, dry hair tightly entangled among the seams. I even smell a faint trace of mold mixed with a strong hint of rot that can't be covered up by the cheap fragrance on the coat.

A wave of nausea hit me, and I almost threw up.

I grabbed the coat and rushed out of the room. "Mom, what's going on with this coat? Why is there hair inside? And why does it smell strange?" I asked.

My mother, Claire Donovan, was slicing fruit in the kitchen, and her hand jolted at my words. Her gaze flickered for a second before she quickly regained her composure.

"Oh, you mean that. That was the display piece in the showcase. Other customers have probably tried it on. The sales associate said it was out of stock, and that was the last one left. I didn't want to trouble her by asking for a transfer from another store.

"I already steamed it after I got home. I probably just missed those hairs. Just make do with it for now. It'll be fine after it's washed. Don't make things difficult for that poor young woman who's just trying to do her job."

Mom had always been a pushover. If someone shortchanged her while buying groceries, she just smiled and let it slide. When people borrowed money and never repaid her, she was too embarrassed to ask for it back.

"This coat cost thousands of dollars. How could you buy a dirty floor model that's been tried on? No, I have to return it," I said.

Mom panicked and grabbed my arm. "It's the holiday season. Don't even think about returning it! It's bad luck! If you aren't going to wear it, just leave it be. Don't make a scene at the store. I can't bear the embarrassment!"

The more she tried to stop me, the more suspicious I became. I didn't doubt Mom, but I figured some crooked salesperson had tricked her into paying full price for a defective item.

…

The next day, while Mom went out to buy groceries, I took the coat and headed straight to the brand's boutique downtown. The shop was brightly lit, and the sales associate wore a crisp uniform.

I set the coat on the counter and pointed at the strands of hair. "Is this the quality you offer for coats that cost thousands of dollars? How long has this display piece been tried on?"

The sales associate paused for a moment. She put on a pair of gloves and examined the coat carefully, her brow furrowing deeper with every passing second. Finally, she looked up, a strange expression on her face.

She answered, "Ma'am, first of all, this coat wasn't sold at our store. Second, it's from last year's collection and was discontinued long ago. We haven't sold a single one recently."

She pointed to the fine print on the inner label and then to the fabric's texture. "Most importantly, the embroidery on the authentic label is raised, but yours is flat. Also, the fabric isn't cashmere; it's a blended material.

"This is a poorly made knockoff. Judging by the wear and tear, it doesn't look like a display piece. It looks more like an old coat that's been worn for years."

My head throbbed.

A knockoff?

An old coat?

Had Mom paid boutique prices only to be swindled into buying a secondhand knockoff?

Before I left, the sales associate kindly showed me several details to help me tell genuine products from counterfeits so I wouldn't be fooled again.

As I stepped out of the mall, a gust of cold air made me shiver.

Mom was incredibly frugal. If she realized she had been cheated out of thousands of dollars, she would be devastated.

Driven by a sudden, inexplicable thought, I remembered the coat she had given my sister, Brielle Montgomery. Could Brielle's coat be a knockoff as well?

When I got home, the house was empty.

I rushed into Brielle's room. Her coat was hanging on the rack, still tucked inside its dust bag.

I examined it the way the sales associate had taught me. The lettering on the inner label was raised. The fabric felt soft and smooth, with a faint scent of cashmere. All the labels were still attached, including the authenticity tag from the store.

I realized that Brielle's coat was brand new and genuine, with a style slightly different from mine.

I stood frozen, my mind going blank.

Why? Why did Brielle get the latest authentic coat while mine was a secondhand counterfeit?

Could Mom have been scammed only on my coat? Was it really just a coincidence?

Just as my thoughts began to spiral, I heard the front door open. Mom and Brielle walked in, chatting and laughing, their arms loaded with shopping bags.

Noticing the coat in my hands, Brielle walked over with a smile and hooked her arm through mine. "Aria, Mom filled me in about your coat," she said.

"She works so hard for every dollar. She scrimped and saved for a long time just to get us matching coats. Even if someone else tried yours on, it'll be fine once it's washed. It's the holiday season. Let's not blow this out of proportion. Stop putting Mom through more trouble."

For some reason, Brielle's words sent a surge of irritation through me. She made it sound like I was being difficult.

Before I could say anything, Mom popped a candied chestnut into my mouth and said, "Exactly. If those hairs really bother you so much, I can drop it off at the dry cleaner's. Don't be upset over something so small. I'll be more careful next time."

As Mom comforted me with such tenderness, I suddenly felt like a terrible person.

How could I ever suspect her? She probably just didn't know any better, and someone had slipped a knockoff in with the real merchandise without her realizing it.

"It's fine, Mom," I said. "Don't worry about the dry cleaner's. I'll handle it myself."

I swallowed the chestnut and forced the doubt churning inside me back down. Maybe it really was just a coincidence.

…

That night, Mom asked me to help free up some space on her phone. She said it had been lagging so badly that she couldn't save any new photos.

I took her phone and opened the gallery, planning to delete the blurry landscape photos.

As I scrolled through, I saw many selfies from Mom's trips, hundreds of them featuring Brielle. There were even destinations I didn't know they'd visited. Why had they traveled together without me?

Just as I was about to set the phone down, a message from a group chat popped up. Before I knew it, I had tapped on it.

It was an ordinary bargain-hunting group chat. I scrolled back and stopped on a series of voice messages Mom had sent three days earlier.

"Oh wow, today is my lucky day! I found a coat in a recycling bin in the villa district!

"It's a bit dirty and smells off, but it looks like a designer piece. Once I steam it at home, it'll be perfect for my younger daughter."

Immediately after, someone in the group chimed in. "I know that coat. It came from the belongings of the coal mogul's mother that were cleared out after she passed away. I didn't even dare touch it.

"A dead person wore that. Who knows what kind of germs are on it? How could you let your daughter wear that?"

Mom replied, "It's fine! My younger daughter is as tough as nails. Even when I gave her expired milk before, she was perfectly okay.

"The money I saved can go toward that Max Mara coat for my oldest daughter. She needs to look good at her job, so she can't wear something cheap.

"Besides, Aria is easy to trick. She believes whatever I tell her."

Mom's smug voice rang in my ears, each word landing like a blow.

So Mom hadn't been tricked into buying that coat. In her eyes, I was only worthy of garbage. For the first time in my 20 years, I truly understood that.

Still, I refused to accept it. I kept going through Mom's phone, hoping to find some proof that she treated Brielle and me the same.

I opened Mom and Brielle's chat. It was clean, filled with nothing but casual small talk. There wasn't a single record of a money transfer. But that was exactly what made it feel off.

I pulled up Mom's transaction history. Sure enough, I saw transfer after transfer sent to Brielle. They ranged from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands, sent every single month without fail.

As for me, the moment I turned 18 years old, Mom cut off my allowance under the guise of teaching me to be independent.

I had put myself through college on student loans and part-time jobs. Even when I was at my lowest, I couldn't turn to my parents for money.

I had actually envied Brielle back then for how she managed to keep up with school while still enjoying such a comfortable life.

Every time I asked how she made so much money, she would give me a strange smile. I thought she was simply being stingy and didn't want to tell me. It turned out she had been laughing at me for being completely in the dark.

The most recent transaction was a transfer of 12 thousand dollars to a personal shopper. The note read, "Coat for Brielle—must be the latest style and nicely packaged."

I could no longer hold back my tears.

If Mom could find a coat in the trash and lie to me about it being new, what else had she done?

My mind drifted back to my middle school years, when I was still growing. Every morning and night, Mom would warm up a cup of milk for Brielle and me.

After drinking hers, Brielle would always say it tasted sweet and rich. She looked glowing and healthy from it.

But every time I drank mine, it tasted strange. The milk was slightly sour, with mysterious sediment at the bottom of the cup and sometimes even bits that looked like curd.

At that time, I didn't understand. All I knew was that it tasted awful.

Whenever I told Mom about it, she would glare at me and slam her utensils down on the table. "Brielle drinks hers just fine. Why do you always have to be so difficult? It's only a few dollars a carton. Who do you think you are, having standards? You're just being picky! If you don't want it, then don't drink it!"

Brielle would chime in from the side, smiling as she licked the milk from the corner of her mouth. "Aria, are you pretending to be sick because you don't want to go to school? This milk tastes perfectly fine to me. Mom specifically bought the high-calcium one."

After that, I often suffered from diarrhea. The worst episode left me so dehydrated that I was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night for an IV.

When the doctor asked if I had eaten something bad, Mom spoke up before I could. "Absolutely not! My daughter just has a weak stomach. She wouldn't gain weight even if she ate the finest food in the world. It's just the way she is."

Back then, as I lay in the hospital bed watching Mom bustle around, guilt overwhelmed me. I felt that my poor health was a burden on my family and that I was wasting their money.

But now…

With trembling fingers, I typed the word "milk" into the search bar of Mom and Brielle's chat. The screen shifted, and a flood of results appeared. They spanned several years.

The latest message was from last month.

"I bought another crate of milk from the supermarket clearance section for only ten dollars," Mom wrote. "The ones with red caps are expired—give those to Aria. She can handle it. The blue caps are still good, so keep those for yourself to make yogurt."

My stomach turned as I stared at those words.

It wasn't that I had a weak stomach—my own mom had been feeding me spoiled milk for years.