Dad blinked. “What?” “The bus fare,” I repeated calmly. “May of 2019. The morning of my graduation, when you told me your hands were tied. How much did it cost?” He looked at Mom. Mom looked at Brooke. Brooke looked back down at her phone. Not one of them knew, because not one of them had ever wondered. “It was two dollars and fifty cents,” I said. “I had a crumpled single and had to dig for change under the seat while you cried over a car with a bow on it. I sat by a dirty window in my cap and gown and watched you photograph my sister. You never once looked across the street.”

I set the pen down on the blank check. “You want me to fund a boutique. You called it returning a favor for all your support.” I let the word sit in the glass-walled quiet. “So let’s talk about the support. Name one thing you paid for after I turned eighteen. One. Take your time.” Dad opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Mom’s polished smile finally faltered. Behind them, through the window, Brooke’s Tesla gleamed in my company’s parking lot like an artifact from a museum of everything I had never been given.