When I returned home six days later, tanned and happier than I had felt in years, my father was waiting outside my apartment. He looked older than I remembered and unusually nervous. At my kitchen table, he finally told me the truth I’d spent thirty-six years never hearing. Rosalind had called the family in a panic that same week, needing eleven thousand dollars to cover a debt. My mother wanted a “small” Easter gathering so they could quietly give her the money without me seeing, because they knew exactly what I would say.

Suddenly, every strange moment made sense. Every dinner where I brought the food while Rosalind brought another crisis. Every time I felt quietly pushed aside. They hadn’t excluded me because they needed space. They had excluded me because I was the only person who noticed the pattern, and my presence made it harder to keep rescuing Rosalind. Then Dad looked at me and said something I never expected to hear: “I’m tired, Delia. And I think we owe you an apology.”