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.

Diane was supposed to stay for dinner.

That was all.

She lived about twenty-five minutes away and came over often, usually without asking first.

She had a key for emergencies.

The problem was that Diane considered almost everything an emergency.

A package she did not want left on her porch.

A new casserole dish she wanted to show Ethan.

A television remote she could not program.

A disagreement with her neighbor.

A headache.

A sale at a department store.

For the first year of our marriage, I thought this was simply how close families behaved.

Ethan was an only child.

Diane had raised him mostly on her own after his father left when he was nine. She was proud of how much she had sacrificed, and Ethan was deeply aware of it.

At first, I admired their relationship.

He called her every day.

He remembered her appointments.

He fixed things around her house.