Chapter 1 - THAT’S ALL YOU GET
The first thing I noticed was the smell.
Butter.
Garlic.
Lemon.
The expensive seafood Brandon had insisted we order because his mother was “finally having a nice evening.”
Then I walked into the dining room and saw my eleven-year-old daughter sitting low beside the table with a paper cup of instant noodles in front of her.
Skylar reached toward a platter of shrimp.
Gertrude pulled it away.
“That’s all you get.”
I stopped in the doorway.
Skylar looked at me.
Her face changed instantly.
Relief first.
Then embarrassment.
That was the part that made my anger dangerous.
Across the table, Brandon continued eating.
My husband.
Her stepfather.
Beside him sat his younger sister, Hailey, twirling pasta around her fork as if humiliating a child were simply another course.
I crossed the room.
“Skylar.”
She looked down.
“I’m okay, Mom.”
I crouched beside her and picked up the noodle cup.
“You’re eleven.”
Gertrude lifted her wineglass.
“Then she can learn.”
“Learn what?”
“That when adults tell her to stop being rude, she stops.”
Skylar whispered, “I only asked if I could have shrimp.”
Gertrude pushed the platter farther away.
“She had an attitude earlier.”
Brandon smirked.
“Charlotte, don’t turn this into another parenting crisis.”
I looked at him.
Something in me went completely still.
Not calmer.
Finished.
I picked up my untouched dinner plate.
Lobster tail.
Rice.
Vegetables.
Everything Brandon had ordered for the “adults.”
I put it in front of Skylar.
“Eat.”
Gertrude’s mouth opened.
I stood.
Then I took out my phone.
Brandon rolled his eyes.
“What now?”
I tapped one control.
His phone buzzed on the table.
He checked it.
The smirk vanished.
Hailey’s phone buzzed next.
She grabbed it.
Gertrude sat upright.
Brandon looked at me.
“What did you do?”
I slipped the phone back into my handbag.
“I stopped paying for people who think my daughter has to earn dinner.”
I took Skylar’s hand.
We started toward the door.
Behind me, Brandon’s voice rose.
“Charlotte, you can’t just—”
Hailey suddenly cut him off.
“But the architect needs the deposit tomorrow!”
I stopped.
Slowly turned.
“What architect?”
Brandon whipped toward his sister.
“Hailey.”
Gertrude went pale.
Skylar squeezed my hand.
And I realized the cruelty at the dinner table had just exposed something far larger.
My husband and his family were planning a house project.
May you like
They expected money for it the next morning.
And apparently I was the only person in the room who had not been told.
