My family hated things like that.
To understand why that hoodie mattered, you have to understand my family first.
My parents, Allan and Deborah Everett, were not evil people. That would have been simpler. Evil at least has the decency to be obvious. My parents were polished people. Social people. Appearances-first people. They believed in posture, networking, tasteful restraint, correct schools, correct neighborhoods, correct brands of water, correct kinds of friends. They liked success that arrived with photographs attached.
I was the firstborn, the serious one, the child who read instruction manuals for fun and took apart old radios just to see if I could put them back together. My sister Ivy came four years later with sunlight in her hair and a laugh that made adults lean in. She was warmth, sparkle, movement. I was silence, patience, observation. Ivy did not mean to become the center of gravity in our family. She just did, and no one ever thought to resist it.
