I turned around at the podium and looked down at my sister across two thousand silent people, and I spoke into the microphone for the first time.

“You’re right, Stephanie,” I said.

“I should answer.

Let me answer.”

Her face brightened, actually brightened, because she thought — I watched her think it — that she had broken me at last, that I was about to beg, to weep, to grovel in public for the mercy of a family that had never shown me any.

It was the thing she had wanted for twenty-two years: to see me small, in front of everyone, admitting I was small.