Months earlier: she has enough trouble with Lily, I do not want you asking her for anything.

And earliest of all, near the very beginning, a softer version that I understood now had been the seed of all the rest: she cannot really afford to help, do not count on her.

From the start, I saw, my father had not told a single enormous lie.

He had told a small diminishing one, over and over, she cannot really, do not count on her, and had let it grow in the retelling, until a woman who sent five hundred and fifty dollars every Friday had become, in the family’s shared account of itself, the daughter who could not be relied upon, while the son who covered a few hotels and dinners had become the one who stepped up.

The money had gone one way.