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After I spent $77,000 covering my brother’s wedding, he deliberately sent me to the wrong city in Italy as a joke. I landed alone in Naples while the real celebration was happening in Florence. The next day, he texted, “LOL, I just didn’t want to invite you,” and my mother piled on by saying the whole mess was somehow my fault. I didn’t argue. I didn’t beg. I smiled, came home, and had a four-foot gift delivered straight to her door. When she saw it, she broke down crying and called me asking, “Can I please pay you back?”

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never really landed anywhere.”

“I thought she was struggling.”

Derek got to me first, of course.

“The prodigal daughter returns,” he said. “Here to ask for help?”

“I was invited.”

He laughed. “Don’t embarrass yourself. Nobody here cares about you.”

I walked past him.

At the main table, my mother sat in the middle of a little court, dressed in cream silk and continue reading …

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