Chapter 1 - The Pot That Hit My Headboard
The cast-iron pot missed my face by less than a foot.
It tore past my right ear and slammed into the wooden headboard with a crack so violent that a strip of walnut splintered onto the pillow.
I curled sideways, both hands over my head.
Glenda stood beside the bed in her dark robe, chest rising hard.
“Cook for my son.”
It was 7:18 on the morning of my thirty-second birthday.
I had slept maybe three hours.
For the previous week, I had been fighting what my doctor thought was a bad respiratory virus while finishing year-end reporting from home for the commercial real-estate company where I worked as a financial analyst.
Philip knew that.
His mother knew that.
Apparently breakfast still mattered more.
“Are you insane?”
Glenda pointed toward the bedroom door.
“He has meetings. He shouldn’t have to leave this house hungry because you want to lie around.”
The pot rolled from the mattress onto the comforter.
I stared at the dent it had left in the headboard.
“Get out.”
“This is my son’s house.”
That sentence.
Again.
Glenda had been saying it for six months.
My son’s kitchen.
My son’s bedroom.
My son pays for this lifestyle.
None of it was true.
But until that morning, I usually corrected her softly because Philip hated conflict between us.
“It isn’t.”
Glenda came closer.
“Excuse me?”
“The house isn’t Philip’s.”
Her mouth twisted.
“Lazy wives get replaced.”
She grabbed my forearm and yanked.
Pain shot through my shoulder as I slid toward the edge of the bed.
Something inside me went completely quiet.
I planted one hand against the mattress and pulled back.
Then I saw the green folder on the bedside table.
Paige Mercer had dropped it off the previous afternoon, but I had not yet shown Philip.
I stopped fighting Glenda’s strength and used leverage instead, twisting my arm until her grip loosened.
I knocked her hand away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“You ungrateful—”
I grabbed the folder and slapped it onto the mattress between us.
“This house is mine.”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Philip appeared in the doorway wearing his navy suit.
“What the hell is going on?”
He saw the damaged headboard.
The pot.
His mother.
Me.
Then his eyes dropped to the green folder.
His face changed.
A woman stepped into view behind him.
Paige.
My attorney.
She had been scheduled to meet me at eight.
Philip apparently let her in downstairs without asking why she was there.
Paige looked at the pot and then at me.
“Are you hurt?”
“My arm.”
Glenda stared at her.
“Who are you?”
Paige ignored her, opened the green folder and removed the recorded deed, the refinancing documents, and the signed post-marital property agreement.
Philip moved forward.
“Demi, don’t.”
Paige turned one document toward him.
“Philip signed it away.”
Glenda actually laughed.
“That’s impossible.”
I looked at my husband.
He didn’t correct her.
I slowly pulled my wedding ring from my finger.
His eyes followed it.
“Demi.”
“How long,” I asked, “were you planning to let your mother believe this was still your house?”
Philip’s silence answered the wrong question.
Because Glenda stopped looking confused.
She looked betrayed.
And suddenly I understood.
May you like
She genuinely had not known.
Which meant my husband had been lying to both of us.
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