I knew. Of all the people in that house, I was probably the one who knew best. I'd seen the sketchbooks he didn't show anyone. I'd caught the way his face changed when he talked about it versus how flat it went when the word "engineering" came up at dinner.
But when our parents made their decision - the sensible one, the respectable one, the one that looked right on paper - I said nothing. I was younger, and it felt like it wasn't my fight, and honestly a part of me had already absorbed the family belief that art wasn't a "real" path. So I let it happen. I watched them close a door on him and I didn't put my hand out to stop it.
He's successful now. By every visible measure he made it - good career, stable life, the whole picture our parents wanted for him. Nobody looking at him would think anything went wrong.
But I still wonder. Quietly, when it's late and honest. What he might have become if even one person in that family - if I - had simply asked "but what do you actually want?" instead of nodding along to what would look good to relatives.
He never talks about it now. Maybe he's made his peace. Maybe he buried it so deep even he's forgotten it's there. But I haven't forgotten. And the confession isn't really that he wanted art. It's that I saw it clearly, said nothing, and have let him believe no one ever noticed the version of him that got quietly set aside.