“Show some appreciation. There are children out there who’d kill for a decent meal.”

Laika looked up. I thought, please don’t say Send it to them.

“I understand that,” Laika said. “I know.”

“Right, then. Don’t play with your food.” My father stuck a fork into some meat and raised it to his lips. He chewed, not taking his eyes off Laika. “Go on. I’m watching.”

Laika speared some carrots and ate them.

“That’s it,” my father said. “Meat next.”

“You don’t have to watch me.”

“You’re acting like a baby, so I’m treating you like a baby.”

Laika put down her fork. “I’m not a baby.”

“Do you need me to feed you?”

“No.”

“Right, then.”

My mother said, “It is possible she’s not terribly hungry, Bryce. She had a very big breakfast.”

My father slammed the top of the table and my mother and I both jumped. “How many times, Bianka? I will not be told how and when to discipline my child.”

My mother dropped her eyes to her plate. Laika ate some peas.

“Eat some meat.”

Laika placed her knife and fork together. She looked up. She said, “I’m not hungry.”

My father slowed his voice. “You’ll eat what’s on your plate. And you will clear it.”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“You’re a child. You don’t get to decide what you eat.”

She held his gaze. “I’m not eating meat.”

My father put down his knife and fork. “While you’re living in my house, Laika, under my roof, you’ll eat whatever you’re given.”

“No, I won’t. Not anymore.”

“That’s what you think.”

“That’s what I want.”

“What you want doesn’t come into it.”

My father stood up. He walked around the table and stood behind my sister. She sat upright, looking dead ahead.

“Eat,” he said. He held a piece of lamb to her closed lips. After a few seconds he took hold of Laika’s hair and yanked it so hard her head snapped back. She opened her mouth in shock and my father shoved in the meat. She immediately spat it back out. It landed in a bloody lump on the white tablecloth. My father moved his jaw. Still holding her hair with one hand, he stabbed the same piece of meat back on to the fork and jabbed it again at her sealed lips. Shimmering lines of fat streaked down Laika’s chin. She kept her eyes shut.

My mother said, “Bryce, for God’s sake, please.”

“One of us has to ram some manners into this child and it’s becoming all too clear it’s not going to be you.”

My father threw the fork back on to Laika’s plate and it bounced off, clattering on to the floor. His eyes moved to me.

“Why aren’t you eating now?” he said. “Eat.”

My own hunger had vanished. I glanced at Laika, sitting with her eyes closed, then at my mother. She made a tiny movement with her head, a microscopic nod. Her hand shook slightly as she raised her own fork to her lips, as if demonstrating for me what to do. She took a small bite of the meat. Another tiny nod. I copied her example, forking up some meat and attempting to chew it enough to force it down my throat. After what felt like an age, I swallowed. My father said, “Show me.” Feeling my cheeks coloring, I opened my mouth. “Good,” he said. “Thank God one member of this family does what she’s told.”

Laika opened her eyes.

“As for you, Laika, you’ll sit there until you’ve cleared your plate. Every bite.”

And Laika sat there. She was still there the next morning, in front of a plate of cold food swimming in congealed white fat. She was still sitting there on the Monday afternoon, her face gray with exhaustion. My father accompanied her to toilet breaks, and late in the evening she was sent to her room and told to stay there until the next day. When she came down for breakfast on the Tuesday, the plate was brought out again. She hadn’t consumed a single thing in forty-eight hours.

My father stood over her, his arms crossed.

From my position halfway up the stairs, I saw my mother go into the lounge and remove my father’s collection of whiskey tumblers from the drinks cabinet. She picked one up and appeared to look closely at the cut of its heavy glass. Then she rolled back her arm like a county cricketer and took aim at the fireplace. The glass shattered on the marble surround. My mother paused. Then she selected a second glass and threw that one too. Then another.

It took six glasses before my father came to investigate.

“What’s this,” he said, a quiet smile on his lips, “some sort of protest?” I looked through the banisters, holding my breath. I’d never seen my mother act like this, not ever, not once. Her face was fixed into a strange expression: moonstruck, dazed. I had no idea what she would do next, what either of them would do. I folded my knees into my chest. I kept very still.

My mother didn’t say anything. Like some sort of living mannequin, she moved jerkily past him into the hall. She paused by one of the half-moon tables, selected a jade figurine from a table and, after a moment, took aim and lobbed it at the opposite wall. With a loud crack, the green head separated from the body and ricocheted into a porcelain vase. Both items smashed on the marble floor, and the sound of the shattering pieces echoed around the hall.

His voice soft, my father said, “There are all sorts of ways to pay for broken vases, my dear.”

My mother glanced at him. She picked up a jade elephant. “Go on, then,” my father said, “do your worst.”

My mother raised the elephant to her shoulder and took aim at the wall. Then she seemed to change her mind. Her eyes moved around the hall. She swiveled her feet until she was facing the black Qing urn.

“You had better deal with me first.” My father’s voice had changed from amusement to quiet fury.

My mother looked at him, then back at the urn. She raised her arm.

“Enough.” My mother lowered her arm. “Let her eat sodding vegetables for all I care. But that’s it, Bianka. I won’t be ordering her anything else.” He turned on his foot and stormed into his study, slamming the door behind him.

Laika had won.

***

I’d always been my father’s Golden Girl. That’s what he called me, as if, alongside my mother, I was not his flesh and blood but simply some sort of prized possession. It was nothing to do with the color of my hair. I’d spent seventeen years doing exactly what I was told. He’d always told us that families were private spaces, that our home lives were never to be discussed with anyone else, full stop. It was, he said, his house, his family, we were his children and his rules applied. But at Robyn’s house I’d seen how families were meant to function, and it wasn’t like ours. Other families didn’t operate like ours at all. Now I started testing him in small ways. Not eating meat was one. I said I’d lost receipts. I rearranged his books and CDs. I answered back. What are you going to do about it, I thought, make me disappear? But nothing worked. I just couldn’t get him to react. Finally I played Frank Zappa in my bedroom at full blast until he stormed in and told me in no uncertain terms to turn that shit off.