My parents had spent my sister’s whole life telling her she was perfect, and in doing so had made sure she never had to become anything, and now, at thirty, she was finding out what that costs.

I did not gloat over her.

There was nothing in it to gloat about.

We had both been shaped by the same frightened people into the same brittle materials, and it was only luck, and the particular accident of being the one they overlooked, that had left me with an inner life strong enough to walk out of that room.

She was getting up from her chair with nothing.