That’s when my mom mouthed the words, her expression grim: “There’s something in your plate.”

I saw her then. My husband’s mother. The woman who hugged me tightly in front of others but called me weak and inadequate behind my back. The one who had whispered to her friends that I’d lost the baby because I “wasn’t strong enough.” The woman who never truly accepted that her son had chosen me. And now, she had put something in my food. Unless my stomach turned.