Chapter 2 - THE FAMILY BUSINESS NOBODY CALLED A BUSINESS
Sarah did not sleep.
At 2:13 a.m., she sat at her kitchen table wearing the same pale pink T-shirt from the party while Lily slept upstairs.
She watched the livestream from the beginning.
Vanessa had built an audience of nearly eight hundred thousand followers around suburban lifestyle content: inexpensive home projects, family dinners, clothing hauls, holiday decorating and the carefully edited chaos of being “the fun sister.”
Patricia loved it.
She appeared in videos constantly.
Sarah rarely did.
Lily did more often than Sarah liked admitting.
At first the clips had seemed harmless.
Lily decorating Christmas cookies.
Lily helping Patricia plant tulips.
Lily laughing while Vanessa tried to braid her hair.
Sarah had even shared some of them.
Four years earlier, after their father Tom died suddenly from a stroke, Vanessa’s channel had become the thing that pulled Patricia out of months of isolation.
Patricia learned to arrange flowers for videos, answer brand emails and organize packages.
Vanessa called her “Momager” as a joke.
The joke stopped being funny somewhere along the way.
Sarah had noticed Vanessa filming more often.
She had noticed Lily turning her face away from the phone.
She had told herself Vanessa would understand the difference between discomfort and real distress.
The birthday livestream proved Sarah had been wrong.
Lily had been excited when they arrived at Patricia’s house that afternoon. The backyard looked like every polished suburban party Vanessa posted online: balloon arch, white trellis, lemonade dispenser, pastel tablecloths.
Forty-three minutes into the stream, Vanessa announced a “surprise challenge.”
She placed the orange bucket behind the trellis.
Lily immediately asked what was inside.
Nobody answered.
Thirty seconds later Vanessa pulled a cord.
Red washable paint dumped over Lily’s head.
Several adults laughed.
Lily didn’t.
She stood there in shock.
Then she started crying.
Vanessa moved closer.
“Lily, look at me.”
Lily turned away.
“Come on. It’s funny.”
“Stop filming.”
Vanessa kept filming.
Sarah had been inside helping Patricia’s neighbor carry food through the side door.
By the time another child ran inside and told her Lily was crying, nearly two minutes had passed.
Sarah watched herself storm into frame.
Watched the phone fly.
Watched the internet lose the image but keep the sound.
Then came Patricia’s voice.
“Vanessa, don’t stop now. You know what happened to the numbers last time she cried.”
Vanessa whispered, “Mom.”
“The campaign needs this kind of reaction.”
“She’s really upset.”
“For thirty seconds. Then Sarah can clean her up.”
Sarah stopped the replay.
She stared at the screen.
The paint had been a prank.
Lily’s distress had not been.
More disturbing was how normal Patricia sounded.
As though they had discussed this before.
At breakfast, Lily came downstairs in pajamas.
Sarah closed the laptop.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Want pancakes?”
Lily shrugged.
Sarah poured batter into a skillet.
After a minute she asked, “Did you know Aunt Vanessa was going to pour paint on you?”
“No.”
“Has she ever done something like that before?”
Lily looked at the counter.
“Not paint.”
Sarah turned off the burner.
“What does that mean?”
Lily picked at the edge of her sleeve.
“Grandma says I’m really good for Aunt Vanessa’s videos when I’m surprised.”
Sarah sat down across from her.
“What other surprises?”
Lily hesitated.
“Mom, if I tell you, are you going to make everybody mad again?”
Sarah felt the question deeper than any insult Vanessa’s followers had posted.
“No, honey.”
She corrected herself.
“People might get mad. But that won’t be because you told me.”
Lily looked at her.
May you like
“There was the lemonade one.”
Sarah had no idea what she meant.
