Every Saturday, I drove to my parents’ house for our weekly tradition. My mom, Susan, made her famous meatloaf and acted like it was a gift to the world. My dad, Wade, complained about his back and the neighbor’s dog and how “kids these days” didn’t know how to do anything with their hands. But he secretly loved having both his daughters at the table. You could see it in the way he kept glancing up like he wanted to memorize the scene.
My older sister, Clara, always arrived ten minutes late with a story that made her the hero and the victim at the same time. Clara was three years older than me and had the kind of confidence that made people assume competence. She spoke in declarations. She laughed like she was on stage. She could turn any conversation into a performance where the spotlight found her automatically.
She also married Michael.
Michael was the kind of man who always had a plan that didn’t involve real work. The kind who called himself an “entrepreneur” because he didn’t want to say he didn’t have a stable job. He talked about investments and “opportunities” and “scaling” like those words were spells you could cast to make money appear.