My mother banned me and my children from my sister’s wedding via text. My sister’s reply? A laughing emoji. They both forgot one crucial detail: I was the one paying for the venue. The phone in my hand felt impossibly heavy. I was standing in the pharmacy line under buzzing fluorescent lights, staring at a $140 prescription for my son, mentally shuffling bills the way I always do—quiet, invisible, dependable. Then the screen lit up. A group chat. My mother, Angela: “Don’t come to the wedding. Yo