The erasure did not happen all at once.

If it had, I might have stopped it.

It happened the way these things always happen, one small degree at a time, each degree too small on its own to make a scene about.

It began with the mother-in-law, Stephanie Vance, and her genius for the insult you could not name.

At the first holiday dinner in the new house, I was seated at the far end of the table, below the cousins.

At the second, I was not seated at all until someone noticed and fetched a chair.