“That sounds like a question for the people who made the plan,” I told Brenda evenly. I said the sale was legal and finished, that I hoped they would find somewhere good, and that I would not discuss it further that day. Mom came back on the line, shaking, and said I had humiliated them. I answered that I had only declined a decision nobody had asked me to make. Then I hung up, sat outside my new apartment in Tulsa with the engine off, and listened to how peaceful an ordinary evening could be.

I thought about the piano. Brenda had lessons because she wanted them, while I learned on a paper keyboard I drew on cardboard, practicing silently so I would not disturb her recitals. I thought about the shared car, and how I returned it with a full tank every time, as if I were borrowing from a stranger. I thought about the kitchen table, where I explained fractions until she copied my answers and my parents called it teamwork. I never hated her. I had simply been taught that my life was a resource meant for hers, and nobody had ever said otherwise.