Three months before that Christmas night, the real fracture in my family had already begun.
It started in the living room of that same house.
I had bought the property in Omaha’s Dundee neighborhood so my parents could retire in comfort. It was a beautiful place, much larger than they had ever been able to afford on their own, with tall windows, a wide porch, and a guest wing I thought might someday be useful when relatives visited for the holidays. Instead, my parents let Shannon move into it full-time, and before long she was living off my money as if my support were a birthright.
That afternoon, my father had called and told me to come over because the family needed to talk. I already knew from his tone what that meant. In our family, the word family was often just another word for what Jenna must provide.
When I arrived, Shannon was sitting on the cream-colored sofa in the living room with her legs crossed and her expression arranged into theatrical distress. My mother stood beside the fireplace as though she were presiding over something solemn. My father paced between the coffee table and the windows, his face tight with manufactured urgency.
Shannon’s cosmetics company, which she had loudly described for two years as her empire, was collapsing. The business was on the edge of bankruptcy, and the bank was beginning to circle.
My parents did not invite me over because they wanted advice.
They invited me because they wanted money.
Mom wasted almost no time.
“Shannon needs help,” she said. “And you have more than enough in your corporate accounts to keep this from turning into a disaster.”
Shannon added a trembling sigh for effect.
“It’s just temporary. Once things stabilize, I’ll get everything back on track.”
I sat down, asked for the accounting books, and ignored the immediate offense that flashed over all three of their faces.
“You don’t trust your own sister?” Mom asked.
“I trust numbers more than speeches,” I replied.