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.

He made sure she never spent holidays alone.

Then I started noticing that there was a difference between closeness and control.

Diane did not ask Ethan for help.

She expected it.

If we made plans on a Saturday and she suddenly wanted him to move a bookshelf, our plans changed.

If we disagreed about something and she heard about it, somehow I ended up explaining myself to both of them.

If Ethan and I bought furniture, she had opinions.

If I painted a room, she had opinions.

If I worked late, she had opinions.

If I ordered takeout, she had opinions.

And because I earned more than Ethan, she had a special category of opinions about money.

“Women who make too much get very independent,” she told me once.

We were sitting in my kitchen.

I remember looking at her and wondering whether she heard herself.

“What does that mean?”