Growing up, I was expected to sacrifice whatever was necessary to keep everyone happy. When I graduated at the top of my class in structural interior design, my mother barely acknowledged my achievement before announcing Chloe’s acceptance into an exclusive summer program in Switzerland.
When I married David five years earlier, Eleanor publicly mocked him for being a supposedly penniless mechanic. She never missed an opportunity to remind me that I’d disappointed the family by choosing a man who wore faded jeans and worked with his hands.
David rarely defended himself, even when my relatives insulted him directly. He simply held my hand afterward and reminded me that our marriage belonged to us, not to people who measured a person’s worth by their bank account.
That Saturday evening, however, even David’s patience was wearing thin.
We’d been at the hospital for nearly thirty-six hours, watching doctors administer antibiotics and struggle to control Leo’s dangerously high temperature. His breathing remained labored, and every change on the medical monitors made my heart race.
