Born too late, the party was already over before I was old enough to join in. My siblings laughed about these earlier, pre-Heather times. I wanted in on those pre-Heather days too, that family bonding, the silliness, my parents’ good-natured smiles, except it seemed I marked the end of that particular party.

Rodney was the oldest. Becky came one year later. Shane came two years later. Holly, another year later. Everyone thought my parents were done, but five years later, they had another girl and named her Heather.

What had I done to crash the party?

Maybe I’d done something repugnant when I was three or four years old. Something like dropping one of our outdoor cats in the dryer, shutting the door, and pressing the “on” button.

I’d assumed they’d been waiting for the right time, when I was old enough, to tell me what had happened, and it would explain their distaste for me. It would explain why I’d catch my mom studying me, and when she was caught, she would squeeze out a strained smile. But when Becky died, the secret they’d been waiting to tell me shriveled under the weight of Becky’s blue, bloated corpse.

After years on my own, I’d decided there’d been no secret.

They’d treated me strangely because I was somewhat strange. Quiet in a sulky way. Too loud at the wrong times. Too desperate for inclusion. Spacey. Missing something crucial related to social perception. OK, annoying.

I would steal Holly’s senior high school yearbook when she was out with friends. I’d sneak it into the bathroom as if I were looking at porn. I’d flip the shiny, starchy-smelling pages and read all the things she’d left in her Dixon South High School Will and try to guess their meaning.

Brandy Candy: to you I leave my floody “mikes,” forever froggies, toothpick undies, smarties in the stall, and iceberg in my teeth. Leann: dog pee, lollipops behind your window, and cinnamon palm tree birthday. Chrissy: your humping horn-rimmed glasses, and riding dragons.

I couldn’t break a single code. Cinnamon palm tree birthday was a metaphor for my childhood confusion.

After I left, Mom and Dad never came looking for me. At the time, I had taken their lack of looking as a silent wink and a nod. Like letting a friendship suffocate under the weight of distance. Both parties knew it was a friendship of circumstance, so when one of you moved, it was a silent promise, a sigh of relief, that neither of you would reach out to each other.

In hindsight, Mom and Dad had probably only been too drunk, crippled with depression, and exhausted to look for me. When I’d left, Dad was fifty-six, Mom was forty-nine, but they’d both looked old. American Gothic weary, with a bottle of vodka instead of a pitchfork.