You humiliated my father, Derek said, on his sixty-fifth birthday.

You made my sister-in-law cry in the parking lot.

My whole family thinks you’re cold and spiteful and manipulative.

And here the playful edge went out of my voice, because the moment had come to say the true thing plainly, and the true thing did not deserve a playful voice.

They thought I was a walking credit card twenty minutes before the check came, Derek, I said.

Which of those insults am I supposed to be more offended by.