She couldn't keep bringing strangers into this house.

She'd agreed to stop, then turned around and invited people over anyway.

My voice and my eyes went colder than they'd ever been.

"My father is staying here tonight."

"And your card-playing friends? Call them right now and tell them not to come."

"Otherwise, you won't like what happens next."

Georgette flinched under my gaze.

But it only took a second for that brazen look to slide right back into place.

"Have you lost your mind?"

"This is my son's house. I'll bring whoever I want here. Who are you to tell me otherwise?"

"Your son's house?"

The sarcasm was practically dripping from my voice.

Back when we first got married, Edgar had begged me to tell everyone the house was his. To save his pride.

I hadn't liked it, but I figured we were husband and wife. It wasn't worth the fight.

After that, the lies he told to protect his ego only multiplied.

The car I bought became his car.

I earned four times his salary and kept the household running. He'd been unemployed for six months, yet somehow told people I depended on him.

His mother believed every word, decided I was worthless, and assumed that no matter how badly she treated me, I'd never leave.

When the worthless one had been her son all along.

"Your son doesn't have a house."

My tone was pure mockery.

"This place was paid for, start to finish, with my—"

"Fern!"

Edgar cut me off, his voice sharp with panic. He grabbed my arm without waiting for a response and dragged me out to the balcony.

His anger hadn't cooled one degree.

"Fern Lambert, are you out of your mind?"

"We agreed on a story. You don't get to change it now."

"If this gets out, how am I supposed to show my face?"

I stared at him. A cold smile carved itself across my lips.

"Show your face?"

"Did you ever once think about how my father shows his?"

Edgar frowned, looking at me like I was being unreasonable.

"What does your father have to do with this?"

"We're talking about me here!"

"Everything!"

My voice nearly cracked from the effort of holding it together.

"Don't forget, he's the one who bought this house for me. He is the owner of this home."

"And today, all he did was use a plate. One plate. And your mother, his peer, and you, his junior, humiliated him to his face. Called him a thief. How do you think that made him feel?"

Edgar's expression went rigid, but not a flicker of guilt crossed it.

He fell back on the same tired script.

"Why do you always think the worst of me? I was just teaching Dad some house rul—"

"Enough."

I raised my hand to cut him off.

"Spare me the noble excuses."

I shot him one last icy look, then turned, one hand bracing my belly, and walked to the bedroom safe to get the property deed.

The color drained from Edgar's face.

He lunged forward and seized my wrist.

"Babe, I was wrong."

"I know today was my fault. I'll apologize. I'll apologize for my mom too."

"Wrong about what, exactly?"

He hadn't expected the question. His mouth opened and closed, but nothing coherent came out.

He didn't think he'd done anything wrong. "I was wrong" was just a tool to keep me in line.

I shoved him aside, gripped the property deed, and headed for the door.

When he realized he couldn't stop me, Edgar dropped to his knees.

"Babe, I mean it. I know I was wrong. You're pregnant. You can't be getting this worked up."

"Besides, your dad's still here. If you make a scene now, he'll be caught in the middle. Think about how awful that'll be for him. Can he really handle that?"

Right as those words left his mouth, I caught sight of my father peering through the crack in the door.

He might as well have had the word "worried" stamped across his forehead.

Something seized in my chest, sharp and sudden, like a fist closing around my heart.

I thought of the guilt already swimming in my father's eyes. In the end, I clenched my jaw and put the property deed back.

Just a little longer. Once Dad leaves, I'll deal with them.

"Edgar, this is the last time!"

A flicker of triumph crossed his eyes.

"Yes, yes, yes. I knew my wife was the best."

Looking at that shameless grin, my stomach turned. But I forced myself to swallow it down and said:

"But I have conditions. My dad stays here tonight."

"And your mother does not bring her card-playing friends to this house!"

Edgar agreed without a second's hesitation.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it."

"You just take Dad out for a nice dinner. By the time you two get back, I guarantee he'll have somewhere to sleep!"

He sounded so sure of himself. I didn't believe a word of it.

On my way out, I could already hear him arguing with his mother.

She was pulling the same old routine, throwing a tantrum and twisting everything around.

Wailing at the top of her lungs: "My own son picks his wife over his mother!"

Edgar, who had seemed so resolute a minute ago, was already softening, his voice dropping to a coaxing murmur.

I glanced back at them, let out a cold laugh, and shut the door.

Fine. This was his last chance.

If he couldn't figure out how to keep his word, he had no one to blame but himself.

What I didn't notice was that every shift in my expression had been watched by my father.

At dinner, as I placed food on his plate, he spoke up out of nowhere.

"Sweetheart, are you getting a divorce?"

The question hit so suddenly that my brain went blank. I had no idea how to answer.

Dad sighed.

"Don't hide things from me, sweetheart. I can see it. You're not happy. But you've always only told me the good news and kept the bad to yourself, because you didn't want me to worry."

I opened my mouth to say something, but he raised his hand to stop me.

"Honestly, I never thought much of Edgar's family. Their situation wasn't great. But I saw how attentive he was to you, and I thought, at least after the wedding there'd be one more person in the world to love my girl."

"But now his heart's shifted. He's not good to my daughter anymore. I can't stand by and let him stay with you."

On that last sentence, he couldn't hold back. His palm came down hard on the table.

Seeing his face flushed red with anger, I felt the sting hit the bridge of my nose all at once.

When Georgette knocked his plate to the floor and called his cooking pig slop, he hadn't gotten angry.

When Edgar pointed a finger in his face and called him a thief, he hadn't gotten angry.

But them wronging me? That, he couldn't take.

He was always like this. I was the one line no one was allowed to cross.

Guilt and grief knotted together in my chest as I reached out and held his hand.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I made you worry again."

He stroked my head the way he used to when I was small, and gently wiped my tears with a napkin.

"You're my daughter. No matter how much I do for you, it's never too much."

Warmth flooded through me. I pulled out my phone right there and called my friend who practiced divorce law.

Once the divorce agreement was finalized, Dad and I headed home.

On the way, I contacted a moving company.

I was done waiting. Not one more second.

At the front door, seven or eight extra pairs of shoes were lined up on the mat.

My heart sank all over again.

Edgar had broken his promise.

Through the gap in the door, a thick wall of cigarette smoke drifted out, so acrid it stung my eyes to tears.

Dread pooled low in my stomach.

I pushed the door open and realized I had still underestimated Georgette's shamelessness.

I'd told her no card-playing friends. So she'd invited her relatives instead.

The living room, which I had left spotless, was covered in cigarette butts.

The flowers on the coffee table were gone. All that remained were shredded petals ground into the surface.

Worse was the couch beside it. Three thousand dollars of genuine leather.

Sunflower seed shells, peanut skins, beer cans, takeout containers piled on top of each other, their juices pooling and mixing together. The stench was unbearable.

For a split second, I thought I'd walked into a landfill.

But what sent the real fury roaring through me were the collectible figurines beside the TV.

All of them had been tossed on the floor.

The kids had snapped them apart, every last piece.

I couldn't hold back any longer. My voice came out sharp enough to cut.

"Stop it! Who said you could touch those?!"

Nobody paid me any attention.

The kids stuck their tongues out at me and scattered.

Their parents shot me a dirty look and went straight to Georgette to complain.

"Auntie, this daughter-in-law of yours has no manners at all. She didn't even greet her elders when she walked in."

"Exactly. Disrespecting her elders is one thing, but picking fights with little kids? You can tell she's from a small town. No class whatsoever."

"Well, obviously. If she hadn't landed a good man like our Edgar, she'd probably never have found a husband at all!"

Georgette's lips were twitching with a smile she could barely suppress, but she put on a show of waving them off.

"Oh, now, don't say that, don't say that. She's pregnant right now, so if anything were to happen..."

"So what if she's pregnant? Which one of us hasn't been pregnant before? She's the only one acting like a princess about it!"

"Right? Does she think carrying one baby makes her royalty?"

As they said this, they ground my figurines under their heels, deliberately crushing them.

Both of those were limited editions. Current market value: twelve thousand dollars.

And intentional destruction of property valued over six thousand met the threshold for criminal charges.

I didn't hesitate. I pulled out my phone to call the police.

But just as I was about to dial 911, Edgar came out of the balcony and pulled me over.

"Fern, come look at the bed I set up for Dad. I made it myself. What do you think?"

For a moment, I didn't register what he meant.

Then I saw it: a four-foot folding cot wedged between the potted plants,

covered with a sheet that looked like it had been dug out of some forgotten closet. It was wrinkled and stiff.

There were even stains on it. Unidentifiable ones.

And Edgar had pulled this out for my father to sleep on.

I was so speechless I didn't know where to begin.

Yet he stood there, beaming with pride.

"I picked the perfect spot, too. Dad can enjoy the night view out here, smell the flowers, and even—"

"If it's so great, your mother can have it."

My tone left zero room for discussion.

"That's settled. Tonight, my dad sleeps in your mother's room. Your mother sleeps out here."

I turned and headed for Georgette's room to move her luggage.

Edgar panicked. The words flew out before he could stop them.

"No way! My mom can't sleep in a place like a doghouse!"

The second those words left his mouth, my hand moved on its own. I slapped him across the face so hard my palm stung.

"A doghouse. So you know it's a doghouse. And you still put my father out here?"

Before he could react, I hurled the divorce papers at him.

"I want a divorce."

"You are going to pack your things right now."

"Take your mother and this whole circus of freaks, and get out of my house!"