He introduced me as his wife.
Nothing more.
That afternoon, the heat made the backyard fence tilt at the edges of my vision.
A blister had started forming on my thumb from an earlier splash of grease, and a dull headache pressed behind my eyes.
No one noticed.
They noticed when Ivan’s glass was empty.
He held it out without looking at me, expecting me to cross the patio and refill it.
I did.
That small act embarrassed me more than I could explain.
Not because serving my husband was beneath me, but because he had turned every ordinary kindness into proof of ownership.
Somewhere during our marriage, he had stopped seeing my patience as love.
He saw it as permission.
His mother, Cynthia, understood the arrangement perfectly.
She had arrived in a white summer dress and spent most of the afternoon accepting compliments as though she had hosted the barbecue herself.
