I didn’t resent him for it then. I just assumed that was the natural order of things, that I existed slightly behind everyone else, like a shadow that only mattered when someone needed a backdrop.

At home, the pattern deepened. My father reinforced it without hesitation. He treated praise like a currency with limited supply and spent nearly all of it on my brother. I can still picture his posture during family dinners, leaning forward when my brother spoke, leaning back when I did. If I brought home good grades, the response was polite. If my brother did, the table turned into a celebration.

And on the rare occasions when I achieved something first, the moment was brief. My father had a way of redirecting the spotlight so quickly that I sometimes wondered if he feared it touching me for too long.