When Chloe brought home a boyfriend, it was a triumph; when I did not, it was a diagnosis.

When Chloe made a choice, it was celebrated; when I made one, it was evaluated.

My father had built, over decades, an entire small economy of approval in which the currency was making Jessi smaller, and everyone around him — my mother, the relatives, the guests at his dinners — had learned to spend that currency freely, because it bought Arthur’s good humor and cost them nothing they could see.

And the cruelest part of a role like that is what it does to you on the inside.