I sat in that car for a long while. Then I called the bank on Monday. The statements showed my parents had withdrawn from it eight times over the years, always in amounts under five thousand, always within a week of one of Bianca’s emergencies. My grandmother had left a letter with the account instructions, sealed, to be released at maturity. Six lines long. She wrote that she had watched how they divided their attention between her granddaughters and wanted one of them to have something that could not be taken by argument.

I did not sue. I closed the account, moved every dollar, and never sent a single message explaining why. Two years on, I own a small brick house with a crooked back fence and a lemon tree I keep failing to kill. Bianca found my address once and asked for help. I said no gently, and the sky did not fall. My mother still tells people I abandoned the family. Let her. I finally understand that being loved on condition is not being loved, it is being billed, and I have paid my last invoice.