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.”

I watched from the laundry room doorway with a basket so full my forearms shook under its weight. No one noticed. Or if they did, they found the image fitting enough not to interrupt it.

When I asked, months earlier, whether I could join the after-school art club, Tina had barely looked up from the stove.

“And who exactly is going to cook dinner while you draw little pictures?” she asked.

I turned to my father. He rubbed his forehead, tired from work, tired from choosing, tired from anything that might require friction. “Maybe next year,” he said, which was the closest he ever came to saying no when Tina was standing nearby.

There was never a next year.

Meals were another way the family hierarchy announced itself. Tina served Chloe first—larger portions, the crispest skin on roasted chicken, the corner slice of cake with the thickest frosting. Mason came next once he was old enough to sit at the table with a booster cushion and his own little cup. My father got the best cuts of meat because he worked hard. I learned to wait. If there were leftovers, they were mine. If there were none, I made toast later when everyone else had gone upstairs.