Mine had gone quiet and loose in a way it had not been at a family gathering in years, and I trusted that quiet more than I trusted any sentence anyone upstairs or down could have offered me.

Chapter 15 — The War of the First Two Weeks

The family’s response over the following weeks was swift and, in its way, deeply educational, because people tell you exactly who they are when you stop being useful to them, and Derek’s family told me at volume.

For the first two weeks there was an all-out campaign, the sort of thing a family that has never been told no mounts when it is told no for the first time.

My sister-in-law began posting carefully vague quotes on her social media about greedy people who ruin family traditions, about takers who masquerade as givers, about how blood should mean more than money, each one untagged and unmistakable, each one performed for an audience she knew included me.