My sister blasted “INFERTILE, DIVORCED, FAILURE” across a 10-foot screen at her wedding while 200 guests laughed—my mother sipped wine, my father called it “just a joke.”

Nobody in Millbrook knows any of this.

The morning after D’s call, I sit in my office with the door closed. Through the glass wall, I can see my colleague Marcus Cole at his desk, headphones on, running cable management simulations for a museum project.

Marcus is 36, ex-Army IT, and the most unflappable person I’ve ever met. He’s also the closest thing I have to family.

I call D back.

“How bad is the surgery risk?”

“At 84, with her bone density, the surgeon said there’s a real chance of complications. She’s strong, but she’s not young.”

D pauses.

“She cries your name some nights. She keeps your letters under her pillow.”

I press my knuckles against my forehead.

My grandmother hiding my letters under her pillow like contraband. Because in that family, loving me is something you have to do in secret.

I have two options: go to the wedding, endure whatever Paige and my parents have planned, see Grandma Ruth, or stay in Richmond, stay safe, and maybe never see her again.

I knock on Marcus’s glass wall. He pulls off his headphones.

“I need a favor.”

He listens to everything. The wedding, the slideshow warning, the nursing home ultimatum.

When I’m done, he leans back and says,