“Your kids can wait in the car during dinner. The twins just don’t feel comfortable around them,” my sister Brooke announced.
We were gathered for my mother’s sixty-eighth birthday. Both of them were clutching hastily wrapped, handmade birthday gifts.
I waited for the punchline. Instead, Mom nodded.
That subtle, singular dip of her chin was the catalyst. It wasn’t Brooke’s ridiculous demand that severed something deep inside my chest. Brooke had been broadcasting weaponized absurdity with unwavering confidence since the late nineties.
I looked at the front window. Beyond the frosted glass, the bare branches of an oak tree were whipping violently against the streetlamps.
I looked back at my younger sister. “Let me ensure I am translating this correctly. You want my children to sit in the cab of my truck while the rest of us carve the roast?”
Brooke offered me that serene, infinitely patient smile she typically deployed when explaining abstract concepts—like ‘personal branding’ or ‘synergy’—to people burdened by actual, labor-intensive employment.
“Rupert, please don’t frame it to sound malicious,” she murmured, adjusting the lapels of her silk blouse.
