I told him I wanted him to answer one question honestly. I asked him if he had any idea what it felt like to watch your own parents erase the one day that was supposed to celebrate you because he could not tolerate the idea of someone else receiving attention while he was unhappy. He rolled his eyes and said life was not fair, the way people say things when they want to sound philosophical but actually just mean that the specific unfairness in question is someone else’s problem.
My mother moved immediately to soothe him. Not me. Him.
My father looked at me like I was the one responsible for the temperature in the room. And right in the middle of all of it, the front doorbell rang.
The sound stopped everyone.
My father frowned at the door. My mother looked uncertain. Brandon straightened up from the banister. There was a brief, strange pause in which every person in that kitchen looked slightly nervous, and I remember noticing that and not yet understanding why.
