Delphina was three years older and had spent those three years, and every year since, being the daughter who made sense to my parents.

She wanted the things they understood wanting — money, status, a good address, a husband who spun car keys — and she got them, and my parents watched her get them with the satisfied air of people whose worldview was being confirmed.

I was the other kind of daughter.

I was quiet where she was bright, private where she was performative, and I chose a life they couldn’t display to anyone, a life of vague jobs and long absences and a husband they found underwhelming, and so I became, by the simple arithmetic of a family like ours, the disappointment.

It wasn’t cruelty exactly.

It was worse than cruelty, because cruelty at least sees you.