My husband sneered, ‘Buy your own food. Stop living off me.’ I said nothing. Weeks later, on his birthday, 20 relatives rushed into the kitchen and then went silent. He turned pale. ‘What did you do?’ I smiled. ‘Exactly what you told me to.’

Chapter 1: The Casual Edge of the Blade
Wars between two people rarely begin with a trumpet blast or a formal declaration. More often, they start in the mundane theater of a Tuesday evening, amidst the hum of a refrigerator and the smell of dish soap. For me, the border was drawn on a rainy night in October, in a kitchen that had once been the warm heart of our home.