My Family Said My Wedding Was Too Far but Traveled for My Sister Until Weeks Later My Father Needed Something From Me

High school was when the arithmetic became official. Madison enrolled at Holy Trinity Preparatory, a private Catholic school at eighteen thousand dollars a year. I went to Washington High, which was public and free. My mother’s explanation was that Madison needed smaller class sizes because she was more sensitive, and that I was smart and would thrive anywhere. I filed that sentence away carefully. It contained more information than she intended.

I thrived because I had to. I worked twenty hours a week at Target through my junior and senior years, saving every paycheck, while Madison got driven to school in a car my parents bought her. Four years at Holy Trinity cost seventy-two thousand dollars. I kept track even then, in the private ledger I maintained in my head, the one I never showed anyone because I did not yet understand what I was documenting.