My father looked painfully small in the hospital bed. My sister, meanwhile, complained about her phone charger before even thanking me. Still, I stayed. I handled their paperwork, appointments, medications, insurance calls, and bills. My mother eventually admitted she should have defended me from my father. When he woke, he confessed that blaming me had always been easier because he knew I would keep taking it.

For a few days, I believed the accident had changed them. Then my father started asking about buying another car, while my sister wanted a new phone. I opened my laptop and calculated everything I had paid since the accident: $14,892.13. My husband read the number and asked, “When do you stop letting people take from you just because they share your last name?” I finally understood that helping them had become a cycle, and I had to decide whether I was willing to continue it.