The orchestra swelled, the mahogany doors swung wide, and the room broke into applause as Rosalie made her entrance on the arm of her new husband.

She was, I will grant her, stunning — a custom gown with a cathedral train so long it required two small attendants to keep it off the floor.

My father walked just behind them, his chest thrown out with a pride so pure and so total that it stopped me for a moment, not out of hurt but out of a kind of anthropological wonder.

I had never once, in thirty-two years, seen that expression aimed at me.