Gwen needed the photographs to be perfect because the photographs were the only part of her life she could control, the only place she got to be the person she pretended to be.

I did not know any of that yet.

I only knew that my sister spent our family vacation ordering my children to move out of her light, and that she seemed, in particular, to find my daughter’s presence in the frame an irritation.

I should have paid more attention to that.

I should have wondered why.

But I was watching Maya bloom in the sun, and I did not want anything, least of all my sister’s moods, to spoil it.

Chapter 4 — The Dinner