Not as a declared policy. As a groove worn into the structure of the family by repetition, by the accumulated weight of small decisions made so many times that the deciding had long since become unconscious.
Brooke first.
When I turned sixteen, my birthday dinner became a joint celebration because Brooke was thirteen and had decided she wanted the same cake. My mother said it made sense to celebrate both daughters at once. My father said it was just a birthday. I looked at the cake I had chosen, now shared, and I said: fine.
When I graduated at the top of my high school class, in the top three percent of my graduating year, my parents left the ceremony before my name was called. Brooke had wanted to get to a pool party. She was fourteen.
The pool party was her friend Cassie’s end-of-year thing and she had been told it started at a specific time.
