Family rarely was.
My younger sister, Madison, was thirty-one and six months pregnant with her first child. She had married Connor Reed the previous spring in a vineyard outside Napa, a wedding so aggressively perfect it had looked staged even in person. My mother had cried through the entire ceremony as if some royal event were taking place and not the marriage of her favorite child to a private-equity attorney with excellent hair and a family trust.
Madison had always collected good things the way some women collected handbags. Men with polished shoes. Homes with white kitchens. Compliments. Sympathy. Attention. Anything bright enough to reflect her own face back at her.
I was the older sister by three years, which meant I had spent most of my life getting blamed for not clapping hard enough when she walked into a room.
By the time we were kids, the roles were already written.
