They began with the Christmas tree, which went up a few days before Halloween. Presents were opened two weeks into November. Then a birthday party on Thanksgiving, though I wouldn’t turn thirteen for another three months, and on Christmas, an Easter egg hunt. And she can’t miss the Fourth of July, they said. That’s her favorite. So we had a barbeque on New Year’s Day, combined with a 7th grade graduation ceremony. I held a diploma warm from the printer in one hand, a hotdog in the other. What a lovely ceremony, they said, snapping Polaroids and sticking them, gray, into silver photo albums. Someone drove up in a blue convertible with a bow on the hood. It’s yours, they said. Don’t bother with thank-you notes. And they snapped pictures of me in a graduation gown over a big puffer coat, sitting in the passenger seat, waving an American flag. We’ve done everything we could, they said when the party was over. There’s nothing left to do. So they waited. A quiet week passed, then two, then three. And when I lived, I was embarrassed. I felt I’d let them down.