The family meeting was called for Sunday afternoon, which should have been my first warning sign. My father doesn’t “do” Sunday afternoons—those hours are sacred, reserved for golf, newspapers spread across the dining table, and pregame commentary played just a little too loud. If he’s interrupting that routine, it’s not because he wants input. It’s because he’s already made a decision and needs an audience to validate it.
I sat on my parents’ floral couch—the same scratchy one that had occupied their living room since I was twelve—cradling a mug of coffee that had gone lukewarm in my nervous hands. The room smelled like pot roast, lemon cleaner, and the faint powdery perfume my mother had worn for as long as I could remember. Everything about the space felt familiar and suffocating in equal measure.
