I cut my steak in my corner and made patient conversation with a nearly deaf great-uncle who twice asked whether I was the catering manager.

At the front of the room my family held court, toasting and laughing and turning their best faces to the photographers, and not one of them looked toward Table Nineteen the entire time.

During the speeches, the best man made a joke about how Thaddeus was “trading up” by marrying into the Pembrokes’ golden child, and my father rose and spoke for twenty full minutes about Rosalie’s perfection, dwelling with particular warmth on the fact that she had never once, in her whole life, been a disappointment to the family name.

I sipped my sparkling water and checked my phone beneath the tablecloth.