I was Margot.
Quiet Margot. Single Margot. The one who worked “with computers,” as if my career were some hazy little hobby involving screens and passwords. The one who never brought a date. The one who arrived early because somebody had to help my mother unload casseroles, and Vanessa’s kitchen was always somehow “almost ready” no matter how many assistants she had hired for the week. The one who cleared plates without being asked because watching food harden on china made me uncomfortable. The one who could be counted on, which in my family meant used without thanks and blamed if I noticed.
If I spoke too much, I was intense. If I stayed quiet, I was cold. If I brought a gift, I was trying too hard. If I came empty-handed, I was selfish. If I helped, I was useful. If I did not, I was making a point.
Over the years, I had learned to survive those dinners by shrinking myself without technically disappearing.
Apparently, even that had become offensive.
Carter planted his sneaker where my chair had been, guarding the empty space as if my absence from it proved him right.
No one told him to apologize.
No one pulled the chair back.
My mother finally murmured, “Let’s settle down,” while smiling into her napkin, as if the problem was not that her grandson had called her daughter a servant, but that the laughter had become too visible.
That was the exact moment something inside me stopped bending.
