My brother pushed me out of my wheelchair at our family reunion. “Stop faking for attention.” Everyone laughed as I lay on the ground. What they didn’t know was that my doctor was standing right behind them. He cleared his throat and said five words that ended everything.

The concrete hit my palms first, then my shoulder, then my head. Not hard enough to black out, but hard enough that the world tilted sideways and stayed there. The backyard spun like I was drunk, even though I hadn’t touched the beer cooler. Fifty people staring, some were laughing, a few were filming. My brother, Tyler, stood over me, chest heaving, face red with righteous anger, and three Bud Lights. “Stop faking for attention,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. Loud enough for the neighbors three houses down to hear the axe getting old.

I lay there on the sunbaked concrete of my aunt’s patio. My wheelchair tipped on its side two feet away, one wheel still spinning slowly in the July heat. My right leg was twisted at an angle that sent lightning bolts of pain up my spine. The kind of pain I’d learned to breathe through over the past 26 months. The kind that made my vision white out at the edges. The family reunion continued around me like I was a piece of lawn furniture that had fallen over. Someone turned up the country music. A kid ran past chasing a wiffle ball. The smell of burgers on the grill mixed with cut grass and the sharp coppery taste of blood in my mouth from where I’d bitten my tongue.

“Get up, Marcus,” Tyler said. I could hear the satisfaction in his voice, the vindication. Everyone’s watching. Time to drop the charade. I tried to push myself up. My arms shook. The concrete had scraped my palms raw. I could see tiny pieces of gravel embedded in the meat of my left hand, blood welling up around them like garnets.

“Look at him,” Tyler announced, turning to address our assembled relatives like he was a prosecutor, and this was his closing argument. “He’s been milking this wheelchair thing for two years, ever since the accident that nobody actually saw.”

“I was there,” my mom said from somewhere in the crowd. Her voice was weak, uncertain. “The voice of someone who’d been beaten down by two years of family gatherings exactly like this one.”

“You found him at the bottom of the stairs,” Tyler corrected. “That’s not the same thing as witnessing it. For all we know, he threw himself down on purpose.” The crowd murmured in agreement.

“Consideration? That makes sense, doesn’t it?” My cousin Jake, 23, worked at Best Buy, still lived with his parents, stepped forward from the circle of relatives. “Dude, I’ve seen him walk at the Jewel Oscar on Roosevelt Road last month. He was in the cereal aisle.” The murmuring got louder, heads nodded.

“Of course, I knew it. Always suspected that was physical therapy.” I managed from the ground, my voice coming out smaller than I wanted, weaker. I told everyone about the outpatient program at Rush. “Sure it was.” Tyler interrupted. He kicked my wheelchair. The aluminum frame rang like a bell.

“Meanwhile, you’ve been collecting disability checks and living in mom’s basement rent-free for two years, playing video games, ordering Door Dash on her credit card, living the dream while the rest of us work for a living.”

“Because I can’t work. Because you won’t work.” Tyler’s face was so close I could smell the beer and barbecue sauce.

“There’s a difference, little brother.” My uncle Richard, dad’s younger brother, the one who sold insurance and drove a Lexus and talked about personal responsibility at every holiday, pulled out his Samsung Galaxy, held it up like he was documenting a crime scene. “I’m recording this,” he announced. “For evidence. We’ve all been enabling this behavior for too long. It’s time someone stood up for the truth.”

I looked around for support, for anyone. My mom stood near the picnic table, ringing her hands. My aunt Linda, mom’s sister, the one who’d organized this reunion, who’d insisted I come even though I’d tried to cancel three times, stood with her arms crossed, lips pursed in judgment. My grandmother sat in her lawn chair under the oak tree, fanning herself with a paper plate, watching me like I was a disappointing television show. Nobody moved to help.

“The doctors said—” I started. “The doctors said—”

“Maybe,” Tyler interrupted. He was on a roll now, playing to the crowd, feeding off their attention. “Maybe you’ll walk again. Maybe it’s permanent. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. You’ve been dining out on Maybe for 24 months while mom bankrupts herself trying to fix you.”

He does look awfully comfortable in that chair, my grandmother said loud enough for everyone to hear. “Like he’s been practicing.”

“Because I’m in it 12 hours a day by choice.” Tyler grabbed my wallet from my jacket pocket where I’d fallen. Held it up like evidence. Opened it. “See this disability card. $837 a month. Plus, mom pays for everything else. Rent, food, medical supplies, special equipment.”

“I have medical bills—”

“You have excuses.” He threw my wallet at me. It hit my chest and fell open. My driver’s license staring up at me. The photo from before when I could stand for the DMV camera without support.

“The gravy train ends today, Marcus, right here, right now.”

The crowd started clapping. Actually clapping like Tyler had just delivered the speech from a sports movie about overcoming adversity through sheer determination and refusing to quit.

“Tyler, that’s enough.” Mom finally stepped forward, but her voice had no force behind it. She sounded like she was asking permission, not giving orders.

“No, Mom.” Tyler’s voice softened when he talked to her. “He’s bleeding you dry.”

“Physical therapy three times a week. Special equipment. That modified van you bought. You took out a second mortgage for him on a house you’ve lived in for 30 years. You’re 62 years old and you’ll be paying that off until you’re 80.”

Mom’s face went red. She didn’t deny it.

“I hadn’t known about the second mortgage,” I said.

“You didn’t stop her either.”

Tyler pointed at me, his finger like a weapon. “You just kept taking, kept bleeding her dry, kept playing the victim while everyone else sacrificed for you.”

He crouched down, got right in my face. “Stand up right now,” he said quietly. “Or I’m calling the police for disability fraud, insurance fraud, whatever fraud applies. You’ll go to jail, Marcus. And honestly, that might be better for everyone.”

“I can’t.” The pain in my leg was getting worse. The kind of pain that meant I’d torn something, displaced something, damaged something that was going to cost thousands of dollars and weeks of additional therapy to fix.

“Stand up.” The entire family started chanting. “Stand up. Stand up. Stand up.” Fifty voices, maybe more. The neighbors had come over to watch. Kids were recording on their phones. My aunt Linda was clapping in rhythm, leading the chant like a cheerleader.

I stayed on the ground because I couldn’t do anything else. Because my right leg hadn’t had full sensation in 26 months. Because the rods in my spine made certain movements impossible. Because everything Tyler was saying, all the cruelty, all the accusations, all the venom, came from a place of not knowing, of not asking, of not caring enough to understand.

My leg throbbed with every heartbeat. Tyler grabbed my shirt, hauled me halfway up.

“I’m done watching you manipulate everyone,” he said. “You’re a liar and a con artist and a—”

“That’s my patient.” The chanting stopped. Everything stopped. Tyler’s grip on my shirt loosened but didn’t let go. A man stepped forward from the crowd. Mid-50s, Asian, khakis and a navy polo shirt, wire-rimmed glasses, carrying a can of Diet Coke, like he’d just been standing there the whole time enjoying the show, which I realized he had been.

His expression was perfectly calm.

Tyler dropped me. I hit the concrete again.

“Who the hell are you?” Tyler demanded.

“Dr. James Chen,” he took a sip of his Diet Coke. “Marcus’ orthopedic surgeon, among other things.”

The crowd went completely silent. You could hear the burgers sizzling on the grill, a dog barking three yards over, the country music still playing from someone’s Bluetooth speaker. “I’m also his physical therapist, his pain management specialist, and I consult with his neurologist, Dr. Sarah Patel, at Northwestern Memorial. I’ve been treating Marcus since approximately 47 hours after his accident 26 months ago.”