[TG Caption] My Sister Saved Me a Chair (Patreon)

For three years my sister Leah has exchanged messages with Marian Vale, the sharp-tongued book critic in her online reading group. She does not know Marian is Matthew in a chestnut wig, plum dress, and the voice I use when an opinion feels too personal to survive under my own name. Tonight Leah invites Marian to the group's first dinner. I arrive planning to stay one hour and never mention our childhood. Then she saves the chair beside hers and asks Marian to read the passage Matthew once hated aloud.