On my birthday, I'd arranged to have dinner with the whole family at their favorite steakhouse.

I waited two hours. Not one of them showed.

Then my husband, Hilary Pruitt, called.

"Mila Harris, we're taking Sophie Henson to Scandinavia to see the northern lights. We'll be gone about a month. They're boarding us now."

For a second, I couldn't process it.

"So you're telling me that you, Mom and Dad, and Nadia Pruitt are all standing me up on my birthday to go to Scandinavia with Sophie to see the northern lights?"

"Mila, you get a birthday every year, but Sophie doesn't get this excited about the lights every day. We don't want to spoil it for her."

I didn't cry and I didn't make a scene. I just hung up, calm as anything.

Then I opened the app on my phone and stopped the monthly payments on the house and the car, along with every card in their names.

1

I looked at the chocolate birthday cake on the table and suddenly started laughing.

I don't even like chocolate. But every year, my birthday cake was chocolate.

Because Hilary and Nadia loved it.

And I don't even like steakhouse dinners!

I shoved that eyesore of a cake off onto the floor, then paid the restaurant's cleaning fee.

After that, I stopped at a bakery and bought myself a little strawberry cake, then went to The Cheesecake Factory and ordered the richest, most indulgent comfort food on the menu, my favorite.

Thinking back on these three years married to Hilary, I'd bent over backward for that whole family in everything.

Small things, like what we ate. Big things, like buying the house and the car.

Back when Hilary and I first got together, he told me he already had the house and car ready, just waiting to marry me and bring me home.

He even took me to see them, a two-thousand-square-foot open floor plan and a luxury car worth three million.

At the time I actually thought, this man's got his life together.

It was only after the wedding that I found out the house and car were all financed, both with the minimum down payment.

And Hilary's job was even less stable. We'd barely gotten married when his company let him go.

Back then he held my hand.

"Mila, from now on the mortgage and the car loan are on you. Once I find a new job, I'll hand my whole paycheck over to you."

He looked for three months. Either the job was too far, or the work was too hard.

Eventually he just came out with it.

"Mila, how about I open a coffee shop? Running a coffee shop has always been my dream. You'll support me, won't you?"

Looking at the hope in his eyes, I handed over another six hundred thousand and let him open his coffee shop.

The day it opened for business, Hilary was so moved his eyes filled with tears.

He gripped my hand tight. "Mila, you've done so much for me. I promise I'll be good to you from now on!"

That coffee shop of his barely had any customers. It couldn't even cover its own monthly rent.

But he was happy running it, so I'd rather cover the losses and let him keep going.

Later his childhood sweetheart, Sophie, came back, and Hilary went out of his way to invite her to work at his coffee shop.

He even paid her double what the other staff got.

Hilary and his mother were still carrying my supplementary cards, and everything they ate, wore, and used came out of them.

All of it, I put up with.

Looking at it now, all my patience did was let them push further.

Just picturing them stepping off that plane, ready to spend freely on my card, and finding nothing goes through, I couldn't hold back a laugh.

Sure enough, Hilary's call came through almost at once.

"Mila, why won't my card work, or Mom's either?"

"I cut off the supplementary cards."

"Are you out of your mind? You don't know we're overseas? What are you cutting off our cards for?"

"You're spending your wife's money to take another woman on vacation. You think that's appropriate?"

"But I've got my parents and Nadia with me too. Sophie's barely costing us anything. And Sophie's family too. The whole clan's out here together, I can't very well make her pay for us."

"Then you pay for her. I never said you couldn't treat her."

Hilary drew a long breath.

"Mila, you know perfectly well I don't have money."

"No money, then why go to Scandinavia?"

I hung up. He called right back.

I didn't pick up, so he started blasting me with voice messages on the messaging app.

"Mila, I know you're upset we didn't celebrate your birthday. But you have a birthday every year. It's just the whole family going out for a meal, what's the point of that?"

"Sophie hardly ever gets to see the northern lights, and it just so happened Nadia wanted to go too, and Mom and Dad are getting on in years and have never been abroad. So I made up my mind then and there to take them."

"I wanted the whole family to go together, actually, but your job's too demanding. You'd never get that much time off."

"Besides, you can't stand the cold. Scandinavia would freeze you half to death. Not bringing you was me looking out for you."

"All right, Mila, stop being angry. Hurry up and reopen the supplementary cards. The whole family's sitting in the restaurant waiting to pay, and it looks really bad, us not being able to settle the bill like this."

"Fix the cards now, while Mom and Dad still aren't angry. Once they're angry, it'll be too late."

I ignored him and opened Sophie's feed. Sure enough, there was a fresh post.

"It feels so good to be loved, to have someone who supports every whim and sudden idea. The whole family, all together, off we go!"

Attached were five plane tickets.

Another message from Hilary landed.

"Mila Harris, I've said all this and you still haven't reopened the supplementary card access. Are you really going to make this whole family wait on you alone?"

"Can you move a little faster? Mom, Dad, and Nadia are all getting impatient!"

I fired back a single red exclamation mark.

After I blocked Hilary, Nadia immediately sent me a voice message.

"Why did you block my brother? Mom and Dad are already angry now. They don't want to yell at you, so just hurry and reopen the card access for us. Otherwise, once they can't hold their tempers, they'll say something ugly right in front of Sophie, and neither my brother nor I will be able to stop them."

The two old fossils still wanted to scold me, so I sent the whole family a red exclamation mark too.

I didn't block Sophie. And I wasn't afraid of the Pruitts using her account to keep needling me.

Because Sophie would shield me from these people, and she needed me to keep her contact anyway.

Otherwise, who would be watching when she flaunted her happiness online?

Sure enough, before long she posted again.

"The family's cards don't work overseas, so I had to put everything on mine for now. But Hilary says he'll pay me back ten times over for whatever I spend abroad once we're home. Hehe, I've hit the jackpot!"

Attached was a photo of her clinking her coffee cup with Hilary's.

Ten times over. Hilary's pockets were emptier than his face. She was dreaming.

Sophie's feed updated again with more photos of the northern lights.

With a caption.

"Everyone should see the northern lights once in their life, with the person they love most. Only then is a life complete."

Every time she posted, I liked it. Just to show I'd seen it.

That evening I came home from work to find the living room packed with suitcases.

They'd cut the trip short and come back.

"Weren't they supposed to be gone a month? It hadn't even been a week."

Hilary was seething. He strode right up to me and let loose. "This is because you cut off our cards. You forced us to make Sophie cover everything, and now her card's maxed out!"

"Oh. So there's no money, and the trip's off."

"We'll let the card thing go for now. Just hurry up and pay Sophie back what you owe her!"

"Tenfold, was it?"

"The whole family let Sophie front the money on her own. Isn't it only right we give her a little extra?"

"You can pay her back however much you like. You don't need to run it by me."

Hilary shouted at me, "I'm telling you to pay!"

"Why should I? I didn't even go, and you want me to foot the bill."

"I don't have the money to pay her!"

"No money, so why put on airs like a big shot!"

Hilary followed me into the room. "Mila, you're just dead set on making life miserable for everyone, aren't you?"

He was winding up for more when the bank's collection call came through.

"What? This month's mortgage is overdue? That's impossible. My wife pays it automatically every month."

He'd barely hung up when the call about the overdue car loan came in.

After the two calls, Hilary blew up.

"Mila, you stopped the mortgage and the car loan. What the hell are you trying to do!"

His phone rang again. It was the barista from the coffee shop.

"Hello, whatever it is, make it fast!"

"Boss, I wanted to ask when we're getting paid. Payday was three days ago and the wages still haven't come through. Also, the landlord came by today. He wants next quarter's rent right away. If we can't pay on time, he won't rent to us anymore."

Hilary's eyes were practically shooting fire.

"Mila, you didn't pay the coffee shop staff, you didn't pay the rent, what the hell are you trying to do? Are we even going to have a life anymore!"

"From now on you pay the mortgage and the car loan yourself. You pay the coffee shop wages and rent yourself too. The house and the car are both in your name, the coffee shop is yours, so why should the money come from me?"

"Whatever I paid before, I paid. But from now on, not one cent of mine goes to your family!"

Hilary raised his hand and slapped me.

The slap knocked me to the floor, and there was blood at the corner of my mouth.

That one slap also wiped out the last shred of attachment I had left for him.

His parents and Nadia came rushing in at the noise.

Seeing me knocked to the floor, Nadia laughed loudly.

"You had it coming, sis. My brother was right to hit you. You just had to go looking for trouble, and now look, you got hit."

Hilary's father pointed at me and cursed, filth I couldn't stand to hear.

Hilary's mother wore the look of someone disgusted at a lost cause. "Mila, I'm not saying this to be cruel, but you handled this terribly. Hilary hitting you, you brought it on yourself."

Hilary's father roared, "A slap's letting you off easy. Hilary, you've spoiled her too much all this time. Today you should've beaten some sense into her, so she wouldn't dare pull this again!"

Sophie came over playing the good one.

"Hilary, no matter how angry you are, you can't hit her. Mila, are you all right?"

She reached down to help me up, and on instinct I shook her off.

She let herself drop straight to the floor.