If not for my weakness for creature comforts, I would have walked away from them years ago. But I took their money and continued to suffer through the weekly dinners at my parents’ home, where my brothers, their families, and I dutifully assembled to pay homage to the idea that we were a functioning family unit.

Surviving these dinners without stabbing myself or someone else was a herculean task. Inevitably, my father played back-seat quarterback with my career, while my mother preferred to focus on the shortcomings of my personal life. Every week, when she mentioned my failure to produce children, my middle brother, Tag, considered that his cue to say, “No kids we know of, at least,” a bawdy joke that somehow never lost its appeal. Every time it was uttered, my father and oldest brother, Simon, laughed appreciatively while my mother looked scandalized, and I wondered if I was stuck in a time warp.

The dinners were so formulaic that I could predict the menu, conversation, and how much my mother would drink down to the smallest margin of error. So when Simon’s wife, Leigh, turned to me and asked whether I was seeing anyone, I wasn’t surprised and had my standard answer about focusing on my career ready to go.

Before I could open my mouth, Leigh’s seven-year-old daughter, Esther, interjected, “Why do you always ask this? You know he just drives everyone away.”

Those were almost certainly Leigh’s words that Esther was parroting, and Leigh had the decency to look mildly embarrassed, while everyone else simply nodded in agreement.

“Actually,” I said, slicing my steak and dreaming of instead slicing off one of Esther’s fat fingers, “I’m sort of seeing someone.”

Silence descended. I put the steak in my mouth and chewed.

“That’s great,” Leigh finally said, her tone a little too earnest.

Beside her, Tag’s wife, Arielle, smirked, her expression calling me a liar.

She was wrong. I was, technically, seeing Audrey. Maybe I wasn’t seeing her in the precise sense that Leigh meant, but it wouldn’t be long until things changed.

“Oh yeah?” Tag said, cutting his eyes at Arielle.

“Yeah,” Simon echoed. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

I shook my head resolutely. I couldn’t trust my family with so much as a crumb of information. I knew they’d find a way to ruin things.

“Come on, Peanut,” Arielle taunted, using the infantile nickname I had repeatedly requested they retire. “What’s the big deal?”

Underneath the table, I balled up my fists and squeezed, nails digging into my palms. The pain steadied me and made me less inclined to grab Arielle by her yellow hair extensions and smash her face into the good china.

“Yeah,” Tag agreed. “You can tell us.”

“Come on now, everyone,” Leigh said. “Let’s leave poor Peanut alone. Look how embarrassed he is. His cheeks are so red!”

She smiled at me sympathetically, and I hated her. I hated all of them, my smug brothers with their sycophantic wives and horrible children and my disinterested, image-obsessed parents. I dug my nails deeper into my palm and blinked back dark, rage-filled thoughts.