My mother sat back down already planning aloud. The guest room could be cleared for after the birth. The bassinet from Enzo’s infancy was still in the garage. The church ladies would want to organize something. Colette accepted all of it with the ease of someone who had never considered the possibility that joy could be unevenly distributed.

Then my father turned his head and looked straight at me.“You’ll be helping with the kids.”Not a question. An assignment.“Excuse me?” I said.He shrugged the way he shrugged when he was telling you something he considered obvious. “Colette’s going to need support.”

My mother dabbed at her eyes. “It would be wonderful for this family if everyone pitched in.”I looked at my sister. “Everyone?”Colette gave me the tired look she saved for people being deliberately difficult. “You’re not doing anything with your life anyway. This will give you purpose.”The room went still in that particular way rooms go still when someone says out loud what everyone has been quietly thinking but no one wanted to be the first to say. Not a shocked silence. More like a recognition settling over the table, heavy and final.

Not my mother, who had heard it. Not my father, who had essentially said the same thing one sentence earlier. Not even with the weak half-hearted protest of Colette, that was rude. My father picked up his fork. My mother looked at her plate. Their silence was worse than the insult itself, because it told me what I had been trying not to confirm for years: that this was simply what they believed, and they had been polite enough until now to keep the belief at a comfortable distance.