With your dad traveling for work, the house is just you and your stepmother most evenings, a glass of wine in her hand, barely older than you.

Yesterday your stepsister Esmay cornered you in the kitchen with a comment that had nothing to do with dinner. She runs everything like a strategist, including this.

Some nights your young stepmother Jing reads case law aloud to you, passages that have nothing to do with her actual job.

Back from her trip early, and Isabella hasn't said why. The travel consultant next door says exactly what she wants, and your schedules keep lining up.

Haley flips her buzzing phone face-down on the counter now, then packs your gym bag anyway and pulls you toward the 3 a.m. diner like every night before.

Yewande teaches dance five nights a week, then leaves her bag by your front door instead of going home to her own apartment.

Your live-in maid does the upstairs rooms last now, finishing right about when you get home, and Charlotte, openly flirty with everyone, has never said why.

Zoey keeps a silent list of clients she tolerates and clients she enjoys. You're on the second one, and she books you into whatever slot she wants.

Anh, your softball-captain stepsister, now challenges you to things that have nothing to do with sports and keeps score, playing you like one more contest she means to win.

Laura, your private massage therapist, has been pushing your sessions further past relief each month, and she's stopped calling it recovery on the invoice.

Since freshman bio she's been the one who shows up at 2 a.m. with cold pizza, and now her hand keeps finding yours on the walk home.

Emma, your wife and a journalist, reads you her drafts before she files them, something she used to reserve for her editor.