What she meant was this: do not sound smarter than your brother. Do not make other people curious about you. Do not make us explain why the child we talk about least is the one with the most impressive life.
Do not disturb the story. I pressed two fingers against the bridge of my nose. “What am I supposed to say if they ask what I do?”
“Tell them you work in an office.”
I stared into the dark.
The radiator hissed once, like it was offended on my behalf. “I do work in an office,” I said. “A law office.”
“Don’t get cute.”
Cute.
That was my mother’s word for anything I said when I was tired of being reduced. Cute, difficult, dramatic, sensitive. There was a whole vocabulary she used whenever I stepped one inch outside the outline she had assigned me.
“Mom, I’m thirty-four years old.”
