She was ten years old, with deep-brown skin, large dark eyes, and two long braids hanging over the shoulders of a dress that had once been cream-colored. The fabric was stained with dirt, the hem was fraying, and one side had been repaired with uneven stitches she made herself using a needle borrowed from the sewing basket.

Her sneakers were worse.

The left shoe had a torn sole that opened slightly whenever she stepped forward. A strip of gray tape held part of it together, but the tape was beginning to peel away. Every time she walked, she had to press her toes downward to keep the front from opening.

She had learned to do it without limping.

That mattered because her stepmother hated it when she limped in front of guests.

“Stand properly,” the woman would say. “People are going to think we don't take care of you.”

The little girl had learned that there were many things people were not supposed to think.

They were not supposed to think she was hungry.

They were not supposed to notice that her clothes were old.

They were not supposed to ask why she sometimes slept in the small room beside the laundry area instead of the bedroom she once shared with her mother.

And they were certainly not supposed to know that, beneath the loose insole of her damaged sneaker, she had hidden a folded letter written by her mother before she died.

The envelope had been there for eleven days.

Eleven days of walking carefully.

Eleven nights of taking off her shoe and making sure the paper was still safe.

Eleven days of fearing that her stepmother would find it.

The child did not understand everything written inside.

Some of the words were too complicated.

There were references to an account, trustees, inheritance, and instructions.

But she understood the handwriting.

She understood the little heart drawn beside her name.

And she understood the sentence near the bottom.

No one gets to make you feel like a guest in your own home.

The girl had read that sentence so many times that she could repeat it without looking.

Now, standing in front of an enormous pink birthday cake, she wished her mother were alive to say it again.

Across from her stood another ten-year-old Black American girl.

Her stepsister.

The birthday girl.

She wore a beautiful pale-pink princess dress covered in tiny sparkling beads. A silver tiara rested above her neatly styled hair, and glittering shoes shone beneath her full tulle skirt.

Everything about her looked as though it had been chosen for a magazine photograph.

The dress had arrived in a white box with satin ribbon.

The shoes came from a specialty children's boutique.

A professional hairstylist visited the house that morning.

And a decorator spent six hours transforming the formal dining room into a pink-and-gold birthday wonderland.