IT WAS hard to imagine anything worse than what we’d gone through with Penny’s dependency case until I experienced what came after. If I’d known then how very dysfunctional our child welfare system is, perhaps I would have expected it. Penny’s case was complex; she was an aberration that the medical community was not built to withstand. She did not look or act the part of an abusive mother. For those whose interactions with her were brief, nothing about her read “unstable”—to the contrary, she seemed utterly competent and likable. It’s a mark of just how privileged and sheltered I’d been until that moment that I expected the justice system to work, that I couldn’t fathom it failing us as utterly as it did.

I tried to bury myself in skiing. Blair and Luke knew everything, but most of my coaches and teammates knew only the broad stokes, which was all I could bear to tell them. I learned quickly that most people don’t have the stomach to hear about something like Munchausen syndrome by proxy, so I kept it simpler than that, telling people that my family had been through a big drama that had left me estranged from my sister. On the upside, it meant I didn’t have to relive the details or withstand the looks of horror; on the downside, not knowing how serious it all was lead people to offer me platitudes. I’m sure you’ll work it out, my sister and I fight all the time! You should resolve it, family is the most important thing.

My beloved tech Bartek chatted with me as he adjusted my skis before the final race of the World Cup season.

“You are sad, Katie Bomber,” he said, his eyes meeting mine for a moment before returning to my bindings. He always called me this, as though Bomber was a last name instead of a nickname. Bartek was Czech, fortysomething I guessed, though he never shared his actual age; he was relatively sparse on the details of his personal life. He was gruff and I adored him. Techs were our lifelines—they helped us succeed and kept us safe on the course, or as safe as anyone could keep us. “I hear you have problem with family. Is hard.”

Being that he wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy normally, I was touched by his efforts.

“My sister is very troubled. I don’t know if I will ever talk to her again,” I said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I have little brother in Ostrava,” he said. “Has drug problem. My family we try and try but he lie and steal from my mother. I love him very much but”—he shrugged—“what can I do? Sometimes nothing.”

I nodded, grateful that for once someone was not immediately trying to make me feel better.