Family is a magical institution, held together by genes, obligation, guilt, and the faint hope that at least one person will remember your birthday without a Facebook reminder. It’s the only place where you can vanish for half a decade, skip every significant event, and reappear just in time to request a favor the size of a government census. 

Some families trade casseroles and inside jokes, sharing meals, laughter, and unconditional love. Others swap passive-aggressive texts, ghostly silences, and, if you’re really lucky, the occasional novel-length bureaucratic form demanding your deepest thoughts about a marriage you barely witnessed. receiving a 63-question legal packet from a Catholic diocese out of the blue, courtesy of the sibling who ghosted you so thoroughly you were beginning to wonder if you’d just imagined your entire childhood together.