I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose.
“But I’m his sister. I’ve been working on their invitation designs all week.”
“Look, honey.” His tone slides into the one I know too well, the one that sounds patient on the surface and dismissive underneath. “It’s a small thing at Brooke’s parents’ lake house. Don’t make this a thing, okay? You know how your brother gets when everybody starts making demands.”
When everybody starts making demands.
The sentence hangs there between us, polished and careful and deeply unfair.
“When I make demands,” I say softly.
“You know what I mean.”
I let out a laugh that does not sound like laughter.
“No,” I say, my throat tightening around the word. “I think I do.”
“Monroe—”
“Right. Of course.”
I end the call before he can hear the crack in my voice.
The apartment is suddenly too quiet. Too neat. Too full of evidence.
The invitation proofs spread across my table. The textured envelopes I special ordered. The ribbon samples Brooke made me bring over because she wanted to see them in different lighting. The pencil notes in my own handwriting about postage costs and paper stock and whether the copper foil should be warmer or cooler under candlelight.
Hours of unpaid work for a brother who could not even be bothered to call me himself.
The memories come fast after that, crowding in like they have been standing in line for years waiting to be acknowledged.
Six months ago, the 3:00 a.m. call from Germany because Mason’s bank card had been compromised and he needed money immediately. I remember sitting up in bed, eyes burning, opening my banking app and transferring two thousand dollars from my emergency fund before I was even fully awake. I remember telling myself family came first.
He still has not repaid me.
Then there were the three late nights I spent designing their engagement announcement after Brooke decided the version from the professional stationer they had already hired was “pretty, but not really them.” I missed Diane’s birthday dinner for that job. Diane, who had made reservations at the little Italian place off Main Street three weeks in advance because she knew how hard it was to pin me down during wedding season. I sent flowers and an apology text and kept working until one in the morning because Brooke wanted “just one more tweak.”
Then the eighteen months of Mason’s deployment, when I mailed a care package every single month. The twice-a-week check-ins on Mom and Dad when the furnace acted up or Dad threw out his back or Mom needed help resetting the streaming password again. The Saturday I spent hauling boxes into Brooke’s apartment so it would be ready for Mason when he came home. The Sunday afternoons I lost running errands nobody else wanted to do because somehow I was always the dependable one, the organized one, the one who could make things happen without complaint.
My phone pings.
It is my cousin Tara.
Just got the invite for M&B’s party. You coming up to the lake this weekend?
My stomach folds in on itself.
Invite?
I type back before I can overthink it.
What invite?
The typing bubble appears. Disappears. Appears again.
Oh. Awkward. Thought you’d be there. It’s at the Hendersons’ lake house. Looks like the whole crew is going.
Whole crew.
I ask her to forward it.
There is a delay long enough to feel deliberate. Then the email lands in my inbox.
I open it.
The design is cheerful and expensive in that polished New England way Brooke’s family likes. Nautical stripes. Cream cardstock. A watercolor line drawing of the lake. Gold script at the top.
Join us for a lakeside engagement celebration.
I scan the details once, then again.
One hundred twenty guests.
Not twenty. Not thirty. Not some cramped little family dinner where one extra chair would throw everything off.
One hundred twenty.
I keep scrolling. Mason’s work friends. Distant cousins. Brooke’s high school friends. Neighbors from her parents’ subdivision. People I have met once at Christmas and people I have never met at all. The pastor and his wife. A pair of women from Brooke’s mother’s tennis club. Half the county, it seems.
Everyone except me.
My phone rings again.
Dad.
