The bedroom light snapped on. Diane stood at the foot of the bed in her floral robe, holding the clippers like a woman who had just finished a chore rather than an act of violence. Her face wasn’t wild or unhinged. It was calm — pleased, even — as if she had simply corrected something that had needed correcting for a long time.
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“Don’t raise your voice at me, little girl. Decent wives don’t come home late from drinking with men.”
Her eyes drifted to the hair scattered across the rug, and something in her expression settled into satisfaction. Then, almost gently, she told me that the promotion had made me arrogant, and that it was time I remembered exactly where a wife belonged.
“You got your fancy title and started thinking you were above this family. That ends tonight. A wife belongs at home.”
I sat there with my scalp burning and my hands shaking, and for one disorienting second I searched for the part of this that was supposed to make sense. It never came. For three years I had carried almost every dollar that kept that house running — the mortgage, the utilities, the groceries, the car payments, the prescriptions, the small comforts none of us ever had to think twice about — while Ethan collected the credit for providing a life he had barely helped build.
