My husband asked me to let my sister be his “wife” for one night. He said it like he was asking me to pass the salt.

“You can have him but you can no longer have my money,” I said before opening my banking app to cancel every single transfer. She screamed that she would lose her apartment and I told her that sounded like a problem for her new partner to solve.

I returned home and found Troy waiting in the kitchen with a look of pure fury on his face because I had dared to speak to Kelsey. He told me I was being humiliating and I asked him if his brother Preston knew about the double life he was leading.

The mention of Preston made him go quiet because he had spent his entire life failing to live up to his brother’s quiet success. Preston was a man of integrity who had built a real life while Troy had only ever built a series of elaborate fantasies.

I called Preston the next morning and met him at a quiet cafe downtown to tell him the entire sordid story. He listened without interrupting and told me that Troy had always needed an audience more than he had ever needed a partner.