As she moved into her teenage years, the pattern hardened. His words to her were clipped, his attention fleeting. Daniel and Elise still drew out his softer tones, but with Miriam, the air between them stayed taut, filled with something she couldn’t name.
Daniel got the car keys when he turned sixteen, Elise’s tuition was fully covered when she went to college, and Miriam received neither. “You’ll manage,” her father told her, not unkindly but dismissively, as though she were the child best left to fend for herself.