At Christmas dinner, my sister lifted her glass, smiled like she was delivering a punchline, and introduced me to her boyfriend with one sentence: “This is the failure of our family.”

A year after Tina arrived, my half brother Mason was born. He was red-faced, loud-lunged, and innocent of the hierarchy into which he had entered. I tried to love him in the quiet, careful way older sisters are supposed to, and for the most part I did. But his arrival sealed something already taking shape in the house. He belonged to the new family photograph. Chloe belonged to the future. Tina belonged to management. My father belonged wherever he was most needed to affirm the life he had chosen next.

I belonged to whatever work was left over.