blamed the system.
When she crashed her first car drunk at nineteen, my father hired the most aggressive defense attorney in the state to erase the DUI—funded by quietly draining the college savings my grandparents had left for me.
I was the opposite. The independent one. The quiet one. The one who left, built a solid career as a senior data analyst for a private logistics firm, and put distance between myself and their chaos.
Until three days ago.
My mother had arranged a “reunion” dinner at an upscale downtown
