The proof of the arrangement was in what happened whenever I succeeded, which was that my successes were not permitted to be successes at all.

When I earned a full academic scholarship, Stephanie laughed and said the university must have lowered its standards.

When I won a competitive research fellowship, she told our relatives, sweetly, that I had probably flirted my way into it with a professor.

When a technology company offered me a job before I had even graduated, she called it, at Thanksgiving dinner, in front of everyone, “diversity charity.”

And I kept swallowing it.

At family dinners, my achievements were received the way you might receive an insult from a guest you were too polite to eject — with a quick change of subject from my father, a pointed question from my mother about whether Stephanie needed help with her rent.