“This is my son’s house,” Patricia spat, her perfectly coiffed blonde hair immobile in the morning breeze. She tilted her head, her eyes scanning me with the clinical detachment of a butcher examining a cut of meat. “And I will not allow a piece of trash like you to marry into this family.”

Trash.

The word didn’t just hang in the air; it stung like acid splashed on open skin. I had heard the whispers at the country club, the hushed giggles when I walked into a room, but hearing it spoken so boldly, so contemptuously, shattered something vital inside me.

I looked for Richard. He had promised to handle her. He had sworn, holding my face in his hands just last night, that he would protect me.