The room, and the 280 guests, revolved around a single point of light: my sister, Olivia. She was radiant, her beauty almost aggressive in its perfection, her white silk dress clinging to her like a second skin. She laughed, a sound cultivated to be both musical and infectious. She was the center of everything. She always had been.

I watched, feeling the familiar role settle over me. I was the quiet one, the functional one, the one who fixed things. I was the shadow that made her brightness possible.

Then, Ting, ting, ting.

Gregory Hart, my father, tapped his champagne flute. The music stuttered and stopped. The chatter faded into an expectant hush. He stood near the towering seven-tiered cake, immaculate in his custom tuxedo, the picture of paternal pride.

But I wasn’t looking at his smile. I was smelling the air. The scent of high-end bourbon rolled off him in waves, cutting through the flowers. To everyone else, he was the charming patriarch. To me, that smell was a precursor to breakage, to slammed doors and quiet tears.

“Welcome,” he boomed. “Welcome, friends, family, and to my new son-in-law, Ethan.”