“You’re just a teacher,” my father roared at dinner. “Give all your savings to your brother so he can start his business — he’s the family’s future!” I stared at him. “I can’t.” This house isn’t yours anymore. Six months ago, I used my teacher’s salary to buy it back from the bank when you nearly lost it to his debts… and the man you just beat was our landlord. I stood up slowly and smiled. “Now, Father — please leave my house. With him.”

The Sunday dinner was a familiar, tense ritual. The heavy scent of roasted meat and my mother’s nervous perfume filled the formal dining room of the house I had grown up in. My brother, Ethan, the “golden boy,” was holding court, his hands gesturing grandly as he pitched his latest “can’t-fail” startup idea. It was something about AI-driven cryptocurrency, a word-salad of buzzwords he’d learned from a podcast.

I, Anna, a high school history teacher, sat in silence. I knew Ethan. I knew his “can’t-fail” ideas had a 100% failure rate, each one costing my parents more than the last.

My father, Robert, a man whose patriarchal pride was his only real currency, was eating it up. He saw Ethan as the “future of the family legacy.” He saw me as a mild…