My stepmother called just as the day was folding into evening, her voice dripping with a satisfaction so sharp I could almost see the smile stretching across her face. She told me, with deliberate precision, that I would never set foot in the family beach house again—that every lock had already been changed.

“You always say that,” I said. “Every single time you let someone else do the ugly thing and then show up afterward with your sad reasonable face. You were trying to keep the peace when Diana told people Mom was too fragile to host Thanksgiving and took over the holiday two months before she died. You were trying to keep the peace when Madeline ‘accidentally’ boxed up half of Mom’s dishes and sent them to storage before the funeral. You were trying to keep the peace when Diana stopped saying Eleanor and started saying your mother, like she was tidying her out of the story. You were trying to keep the peace last month when I found out I hadn’t been invited to Madeline’s graduation brunch because Diana told everyone I was traveling.”

His mouth opened.

I didn’t let him interrupt.

“You call it peace because the real word would require a spine.”

He flinched.