“How could you throw your own sister out of your house over a photo disagreement, Claire?” she demanded.

“She is family!

You know how sensitive she is about her appearance!” And I heard, in my mother’s voice, the whole lifelong machinery of it, the way Gwen had always been the sensitive one, the one who had to be handled, the one whose feelings came first, while the rest of us adjusted ourselves around her.

My mother had spent decades believing Gwen’s version of things, and here she was again, at seven in the morning, calling to scold the wrong daughter on the strength of a phone call from the one who had actually done wrong.

But this time I had something my mother’s loyalty could not argue with.