“She had rehearsal.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was again.
Avery.
Always presented like an explanation complete enough to end the conversation.
“You missed my college graduation because of her rehearsal too,” I said.
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither was standing alone after they called my name.”
He sighed.
“Your mother shouldn’t have involved the police.”
It was the closest thing to agreement I had heard from him, but even then he sounded as if we were discussing a minor scheduling error.
“Then why did she?”
“She panicked.”
“About me?”
Silence.
“Or about the money?”
He did not answer.
I sat at the kitchen table.
The chair felt cold against the backs of my legs.
Finally Dad said, “Avery’s party is important to her.”
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because there it was.
The truth, clean and uncomplicated.
My graduation could be missed.
Avery’s party could not be reduced.
“They’ve already made deposits,” he continued.
“Your mom budgeted with the understanding that you’d help.”
“With whose understanding?”
“Camila.”
“No.
I want an answer.
Who told her I was paying $2,100?”
He hesitated.
“That’s what you always do.”
I looked down at my hands.
For years, that sentence would have worked.
That is what you always do.
As if repetition were consent.
As if every transfer I had made in exhaustion had signed a lifetime contract.
“I’m not doing it anymore.”
Dad’s tone hardened.
“Don’t punish your sister because you’re angry at us.”
“I’m not punishing Avery.
I’m refusing to pay for a party I never agreed to fund.”
“It’s her Sweet 16.”
“And I had a graduation.”
He went quiet.
I could almost hear the machinery of our family turning, searching for the old button that would make me apologize.
Guilt.
Duty.
Avery.
Mom’s stress.
Dad’s health.
Anything except the possibility that I was allowed to say no.
Then he tried the line that had worked most often.
