“‘This is Diana—our family dropout,’ my mother said for the fifteenth Thanksgiving in a row, but when my sister’s new husband reached across the table to shake my hand, his grip locked, his face went still, and the room forgot how to laugh before he said the two words nobody there was prepared to hear”

the proprietary satisfaction of someone who has done excellent advanced planning.

I said that sounded great.

I hung up the phone and sat on my bed and looked at the OCS confirmation on my laptop and thought I should tell her.

I did not tell her for three more weeks.

When the call finally happened in May, it went exactly the way I had feared and exactly continue reading …