Growing up, we always ate dinner together at the table. This was a non-negotiable—no matter how busy the day or how plentiful the homework waiting or how foul the moods among us, we sat down together. One of us might be sulking: refusing to pass the Jane’s salt and staring down at our plate, but we’d never dare not join in.

With four girls, all two years apart, the nights were (pleasantly) chaotic. The sky outside would be dark; the lights in the kitchen bright and inviting. Pots on the stove would be bubbling merrily away, the smell of chicken stock and melting cheese hanging in the air. Unzipped backpacks would be slung on the stools lined up against the kitchen island; notebooks and textbooks open on the counter, uncapped pens and a scientific calculator stacked haphazardly next to them.