She headed straight for me and I squared my shoulders, lifting my chin. I could do this.

“Madison.”

Uh-oh. I wasn’t going to even get the barest veneer of civility? “Nice to see you, Mother.” Or, more accurately, it was nice to see the latest version of her face.

I knew I shouldn’t judge her. I had either inherited or absorbed her vanity, despite trying to not be so shallow. I’d probably wind up getting work done on my face when I was her age, too. Well, I would if I could afford it, which was looking very questionable.

“Do you know what I had to do today?” she demanded, and I drew in a large breath, discarding all my initial responses.

Overreact to a perceived slight?

Make a list of all the ways I’ve failed and disappointed you?

Be offended when someone failed to recognize you and how important you are?

Start a new diet?

I settled on, “What?” That seemed safe-ish.

My father joined us. “What did I miss?”

That was followed by an awkward silence—my mother annoyed at being interrupted, me not knowing what to say next, him not having anything else to add to the discussion beyond that question. As far back as I could remember, I’d never had an actual conversation with my father. Nothing beyond him asking me a single question. I could never understand how a man who could so easily schmooze the media and wealthy donors was so bad at interacting with his own family.

Coughlin then appeared in the doorway to announce that dinner was served. I wanted to kiss him again for saving me from temporarily having to find out what my mother had to do that day.

Everybody went into the dining room two by two with me acting like the caboose, bringing up the rear solo.

I pulled my own chair out and scooted it back in as two servers brought out the first course. I smoothed my linen napkin onto my lap before anyone could do it for me. My mother’s eyes were on me, glaring.

My father was telling a tale of a particularly grueling round of golf he’d played that day and in the middle of it my mother interrupted him to say, “You were playing with Randall Ducksworth? I was at lunch with his wife Laura today. We were at Le Chateau and then to our surprise we found the Horvath sisters and . . .”

She continued talking but I tuned her out. My mother hated when the spotlight was off her for even a second and would often use someone else’s story to turn it into something about her. During my twenty-first birthday celebration a couple of years ago, I’d decided to do a shot every time my mom made the conversation about her, but five minutes into it I had to stop because I was going to wind up in the hospital with an exploded liver.

And instead of my father being upset about getting cut off, he just sat there and calmly ate his soup. While my mother had never had a formal diagnosis (and never would, as she was never wrong for any reason ever), I’d come to suspect she did suffer from a narcissistic personality disorder. People liked to throw around that term a lot, but I was pretty sure she actually had it. I had read multiple diagnostic lists where the instructions would say something like a person is a narcissist if they meet six of these twelve requirements, and my mom would meet all twelve. Everything in our lives was about her, her feelings and wants; nobody else mattered. My parents had fought for my entire childhood. They had come close to divorce on several occasions. But in the end my father gave in and had learned to get along by going along. For the sake of their relationship, he deferred to my mom on everything. He was always on her side, no matter how wrong she might have been.

She’d also been careful in grooming my two older sisters. If she told them to jump, they would always ask how high and what else she wanted them to do right after. I was the only one who had ever defied her.

It had always seemed odd to me that the world regarded my father as a powerful and successful businessman and politician, because he had no control over his personal life. He always did whatever she wanted. She ruled our home with an iron fist.

To make sure that her children and grandchildren stayed in line, she had constructed a will with multiple conditions concerning levels of success and what behaviors were appropriate and not appropriate. Like we had to have a college degree to inherit, and my parents would contact their attorneys on a yearly basis to assess whether or not we had a “good” relationship. Church attendance and volunteering hours were mandatory. Inheriting would happen only if we met every single one of their conditions. It struck me as immeasurably sad that my mother was so desperate to control us that she planned on doing it from beyond the grave.

It made me slightly more sympathetic to think that she behaved the way she did because she was ill, even if she wouldn’t acknowledge it. But it also infuriated me that I’d grown up the way I had, thinking it was normal for your parents to say things like my love has to be earned.

Mom’s story about her shopping excursion with her boring friends continued on through the appetizers and on to our main meal. The vein in the top left of my forehead had started to throb and I wondered how much longer I was going to be subjected to this before somebody explained what I was doing there.

Because I hated sitting there all nervous, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Despite her talking about something inane, I could still feel her disapproval radiating toward me. It was agony. I would have preferred the lions being set loose into the arena at the beginning of dinner instead of anxiously anticipating their release.

Then, as if in direct response to my anxiety, Vanessa said, “So are we not going to talk about the black sheep in the room?”

I knew what the “right” thing to do here was. I was supposed to hang my head and feel ashamed of my choices. I wasn’t supposed to respond and should just let them humiliate me for blemishing the precious Huntington name.

That didn’t really work for me anymore. “Here we go. I don’t know how I’ve managed to survive the last few months without your constant criticism.”

Vanessa narrowed her eyes at me. “Criticism is just an unpleasant way of telling the truth. Something nobody else at this table seems to want to do.”

“Whatever. Being a teacher doesn’t qualify me for black-sheep status.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Violet agreed. Part of me wanted to believe that she was sticking up for me, but I knew it was because she wanted to get the upper hand in an argument she and Vanessa had been having since, I suspected, they were forced to share a womb.

“Right.” Vanessa nodded, her attention now focused on her twin. “I suppose that’s reserved for someone who just got out of rehab for the fifth time.”

“Or maybe it’s for someone who has a husband with so many mistresses they could populate their own small country,” Violet hissed back. Believe it or not, this was what passed for mostly civil in our family. I wondered whether I should go over and take away their knives.

“Helping people is not a bad thing.” I wanted to stand up for myself and I wasn’t going to let my sister belittle my career choice.

Vanessa decided to turn her venomous wrath on me. “You could take over the philanthropy division at Daddy’s company. You could help a lot more people than you ever will in your little job.”

I was about to explain the numerous issues with her suggestion when my mother imperiously told us to be quiet. While my father and brother-in-law were ignoring all of us and focusing on their steaks, Violet’s date looked both horrified and concerned. I wanted to tell him to run far and run fast.