Chapter 1 - THE FIRST SLAP
My father-in-law slapped me before the wedding flowers had even started to wilt.
The second slap came while my husband watched.
He did nothing.
So I grabbed a steel bar from the balcony, smashed their glass dining table into a thousand pieces, and said the words that ended my marriage less than twenty-four hours after it began.
“Touch me again, and the next person you speak to will be a police officer.”
Nobody laughed.
Nobody moved.
Especially Dwight.
Twelve hours earlier, I had still believed I had married the man I loved.
I was wrong.
My name is Elizabeth Carter.
I was thirty-two when I married Dwight Mercer after two years together.
He was charming when he wanted to be.
Quiet.
Patient.
The kind of man who remembered how I took my coffee and called me every night when I traveled for work.
Or at least, that was the man I thought I knew.
Our wedding cost more than I wanted.
I put in nearly forty-eight thousand dollars between the ceremony and what Dwight called “our apartment fund.”
His family contributed barely anything.
But Dwight kept saying we were building something together.
“A fresh start,” he called it.
Apparently, his idea of a fresh start was moving me into his parents’ crowded Baltimore apartment.
“For a few weeks,” he promised.
The first night, I was still wearing my ivory reception dress when his mother, Susan, entered our bedroom carrying fruit, an envelope, and the smile of someone about to sell me something I didn’t want.
“Welcome to the family.”
She handed me the envelope.
Inside were five twenty-dollar bills.
Then came the paper.
DUTIES OF THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW.
I read the first line twice.
Breakfast for six.
Lunch for six.
Dinner for six.
Laundry for everyone.
Bathrooms.
Floors.
Groceries.
Bedsheets.
Eight hundred dollars monthly toward household expenses.
I looked up.
“Is this a joke?”
Susan smiled.
“No, honey. This is how our family works.”
Dwight sat on the bed staring at his phone.
I turned to him.
“Dwight?”
He shrugged.
“My mom keeps things organized.”
I stared at him.
“You knew about this?”
“Elizabeth, don’t start.”
That sentence hit harder than it should have.
His sister Gemma appeared in the doorway.
“She’s already complaining?”
Ryan, his younger brother, walked past us and tossed dirty socks onto the dresser.
“Mine need washing too.”
I looked at the entire family.
Then back at Dwight.
“I’m not doing this.”
Susan gasped as though I had cursed at her.
Gemma folded her arms.
“Then what exactly did Dwight marry you for?”
The room went quiet.
Gemma blinked.
Dwight slowly looked up.
Susan snapped, “Gemma.”
But it was too late.
I heard the words.
And more importantly…
May you like
I saw the fear on my husband’s face.
That was the first moment I realized there was something everyone in that apartment knew except me.
