Nora crossed her arms. “There’s always a condition.”

Nora, who had raised her siblings after their father left when she was sixteen, immediately fell into her old role: cook, cleaner, mediator. She made grocery lists and schedules. She scrubbed the kitchen floor at 6 a.m. She tried to impose order on a house that had never known any.

“You’re not my full brother,” she said to Michael. “And Nora, you’re only my half-sister. Mom had an affair. I’m the result.”