At dinner, my brother sneered, ‘still single, huh? must be lonely being a failure.’ my parents chuckled – so i smiled and said, ‘funny coming from a guy whose rent i’ve paid for 3 years. not anymore, by the way.’

My mother was the first person to approach me.

“Derek, what have you done?”

I looked at her.

She wasn’t asking whether I was okay.

She wasn’t asking how long Connor had been stealing from me.

She was asking why I had exposed him.

“Mom, he stole my work.”

“You could have handled this privately!”

“I tried.”

“You embarrassed your brother in front of hundreds of people!”

I took a breath.

“Did you ever ask him why he was using my projects?”

She looked away.

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“He’s your brother!”

I nodded slowly.

There it was again.

The same excuse.

The same sentence that had protected Connor for almost thirty years.

My father finally approached us.

“Derek, enough. We are all family. Whatever happened, we can sit down and work it out.”

I looked at him.

“Where was that attitude when I was paying Connor’s rent?”