Chapter 3

He lunged for it, and I raised the fruit knife.

"Don't come any closer. Or I won't hold back."

I tapped his phone open.

The passcode was our wedding anniversary.

Two chats were pinned at the top.

One was Imogen Harding, saved under "My Darling Wife."

The other was a group chat called "The Real Family."

Dean's parents were in it. My parents were in it. Imogen was in it.

Everyone but me.

Last month's messages.

Dean had posted a photo to the group.

It was a high-end postpartum care center.

In it, Imogen sat up in bed holding a newborn, smiling like the happiest woman alive.

Dean had his arm tight around her.

My parents and his parents stood clustered around them.

One big family portrait.

Warm and cozy, every one of them.

Those smiles were like needle points.

They drove into me one after another, and the dense, prickling pain spread through my whole body.

Dean reached for the phone again. "Althea, let me explain."

"Shut up." I kept scrolling.

My father was the first to reply under the photo.

"Bailey looks just like her mother, just as pretty. She'll grow up to be a real beauty. Grandpa doesn't have much to give you, so I sent you a two-hundred-thousand cash gift."

"Whatever you do, don't tell Althea about this. That girl's so stubborn, no telling how she'd bully our Imogen if she found out."

A year ago my father had a stroke and was hospitalized.

The whole time, I was the one caring for him.

Every day I emptied his bedpan and wiped him down, fed him his meals and his medicine.

The bills were steep, and his savings weren't enough.

I paid out of my own pocket, spent a lot of money on his treatment.

But the first thing he did once he recovered was send Imogen two hundred thousand.

My mother chimed in too:

"Exactly. If she found out she'd only make trouble. Imogen, you just focus on being good to Dean. We'll cover everything else for the two of you."

Imogen answered with a smiley face. "Thank you, Uncle and Auntie."

I make ten thousand a month.

Eight thousand of it went to my mother.

I was always bringing home supplements and health foods for her too.

I wouldn't even spring for a new outfit for myself at the holidays.

But now she was covering for the mistress and lying to me, her own daughter.

My mother-in-law jumped in to defend Imogen.

"Honestly, I've always thought Imogen would make the better daughter-in-law. If Dean weren't still hung up on Althea, I'd have said yes long ago."

"Dean's just too soft-hearted. You two already have a child, and he still can't bring himself to let go."

It came back to me all at once.

The day I married into the Vance family, at the wedding, my mother-in-law slipped a gold bracelet onto my wrist and told me, so earnestly,

"Now that you've married into the Vance family, I'll treat you like my own daughter."

After the wedding she waited on me herself, did the housework, the laundry, the cooking, never let anything slide, never let me lift a finger.

In the end, she didn't like me at all.

My father-in-law posted the deed to the unit in the building across from ours.

"Imogen, this is a gift from me, for you and the baby. Living in the same complex, it'll be easier for Dean to look after you both."

My father-in-law had run up gambling debts on a trip abroad.

When the creditors chased him back home to collect and one of them swung a knife at him, I took the blade for him. Otherwise he'd already be dead.

The scar on my back is still plain to see.

I laughed.

And laughing, I started to cry.

Dean panicked.

"Althea, don't scare me. You're my wife. You're the only one I've ever loved. You have to believe me."

"Imogen and the baby were just an accident. If you don't want them here, I'll make them leave, all right?"