My eighteen-year-old brother reached for one piece of chicken at dinner, and my mother-in-law slapped him so hard his fork hit the plate. “You greedy little freeloader!” she screamed. My husband didn’t defend him. He looked at me and said, “Don’t make this worse.” Four years of keeping the peace ended right there—because Diane still believed she was standing in her son’s house.

I almost did not believe him.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“No.”

“She was wrong to slap him.”

“Stop there.”

“But you took it too far.”

There it was again.

The correction.

The balance.

Diane could slap someone.

I could object too strongly.

Somehow, those things belonged on the same scale.

“You’re going to call her,” he said, “and apologize for throwing her out and for that garbage about the house, or I swear to God, Claire…”

“Or what?”

He stopped.

I stepped closer.

“If you’re threatening to leave, I’ll help you pack.”

His expression changed.

I had never said anything like that to him before.

Neither of us moved.

Noah was still in the dining room.

I hated that he was hearing this.

I hated even more that I had protected him from too little already.

“Tonight you decide whose side you’re on,” I told Ethan. “And your answer will determine whether you’re still my husband tomorrow morning.”