My father, without looking up from his menu, added his own casual reinforcement. “You should have packed him something if you knew he’d be hungry.”

I just smiled, a tight, brittle thing that didn’t reach my eyes, and said, “Noted.” It was a single word, but it was the sound of a tectonic plate shifting deep beneath the surface of my life.

For most of my adult life, I have been the designated cleaner of my sister’s messes. Financial, emotional, you name it. I was the one who co-signed on the apartment she couldn’t afford, the