And I understood, in that suspended silent moment with the coffee running over Brandon’s knuckles, the full shape of what she was counting on.

She was counting on our love for Holly to keep us quiet — because to object was to make the moment bigger, to force Holly to stand in an even brighter spotlight of not-belonging, to turn her daughter’s small private wound into a family war fought over her head.

Our love for Holly had always been Gene’s best weapon against us.

Every year, we protected Holly from the scene by absorbing the insult, and every year, absorbing the insult was itself the injury.