I only knew that my phone was about to ring, and that my sister’s bright, careful voice was going to ask me for something.

I knew it the way you know a storm from the pressure before the first cloud.

Monique does not call at seven in the morning to chat.

She calls when she has already decided something and needs an audience to make it feel real, and the role she had cast me in, over the years, was the sensible older sister whose approval converted her impulses into plans.

I had played that role more times than I could count, and I had learned, slowly and not always in time, that my approval was not actually what she wanted.