Blacklisted From The Family Draw

Summary

In our house, my parents’ attention was distributed by lottery.

For ten straight years, I entered the digital draw every Sunday night. I experimented with superstition, tried algorithm-busting apps, refreshed at exact millisecond marks—and never won once.

On my sixteenth birthday, they were booked to take my older sister skiing in Vermont.

When I was seventeen and doubled over on the bathroom floor, dry-heaving from acute gastritis, they were two hours away at an arena concert with my little brother.