I had no desire to put my meager relaxation time on hold to hear all about the competition that constantly brewed between the Portman brothers. Oliver had clearly won before the race even began. He was gorgeous, a brilliant businessman, rich…Mommy’s favorite. It was obvious how Debra doted on him like he was a prince, with Cody the lowly serf. But what did it matter as long as Cody was happy? The whole sibling rivalry was so three decades ago.

“No…you don’t want to hear about it. You look…busy.” He gestured to the paperback beside me, a tattered pink dahlia splashed across the cover.

“I’m never too busy for you.” I patted the mattress. “Come. Vent. I’m all yours.”

He sat, turned to me. “It feels wrong bitching about my family when your family was crazier than mine.”

Crazy. An awful, empty word that reduced people to objects, good or bad, normal or deviant. Was that all I was? An insulting, outdated label pegging me mentally ill and therefore damaged goods? Worthless? Capable of any number of horrors? I felt like the attention-seeking wannabe actress who would do just about anything to catch the spotlight.

A memory with my mother flitted into my mind, then hit me with a closed fist. Our last words before she died. How she pleaded for my forgiveness. How I had called her a crazy, selfish, horrible person. My mother had morphed from the hero in my life into the villain, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the transition started. Sure, I had been angry with her for letting the darkness win and take over after Dad died, the lurid sadness that held her captive. All that time I thought she was crazy, but maybe I was the crazy one. Crazy for not understanding her, or loving her through the struggle. Crazy for ever judging another person’s crazy.

I wanted to say all of this to my husband, but I didn’t.

“Well, if you change your mind, I’m here to listen,” I said instead.

“I’m going to jump in the shower. I’m too mad to talk about it right now. You wouldn’t understand anyway. You never had asshole siblings or asshole parents who always think the worst of you.”

Not ones that I cared to talk about, at least. Cody knew the basic details, like my dad’s unexpected passing when I was nine and losing my mother when I turned thirteen. While their deaths weren’t directly connected, they sort of were. From the moment Dad’s remains returned stateside from Afghanistan in a flag-draped transfer case, Mom had become a different person. Cue her self-medication, and it wasn’t hard to link the cause and effect. Some wounds simply didn’t heal, no matter how much time you gave them.