At my grandmother’s will reading, my mother sat in front of fourteen silent people, watched the lawyer read out a $2.3 million estate that somehow included everyone but me, then turned with a smile so calm it felt practiced and said, “You were always her least favorite.” And for one humiliating second, I thought she had finally found the perfect way to erase me in public.

The true reality of my standing in the family became painfully clear on my thirtieth birthday when I invited everyone over for a simple dinner at my apartment. My father and Harrison claimed they were far too busy with a golf tournament to attend while Marilyn showed up two hours late only to hand me a card with fifty dollars and leave after forty minutes.

“Get yourself something nice, honey, since I know teachers do not make much of a salary these days,” Marilyn whispered as she kissed my cheek and checked her watch. I learned only a week later that she had gifted Harrison a luxury watch for his recent promotion which was a sharp contrast to the generic card I received without even a handwritten note inside.

However, before the disappointment of that day could truly set in, my phone had rung early that morning with a call from my grandmother, Rosalind. She sang the entire happy birthday song off key and told me that I was the finest person our family had ever produced even if the others were too blind to acknowledge my worth.