To his parents, he had said that I was the problem — that I resented them, that I had cut them off, that I refused to let them near their own grandchildren and demanded we keep to ourselves.

Every year that Marguerite’s letters went unanswered, she had one explanation for it, and Grayson had planted that explanation himself: the cold, difficult daughter-in-law who kept the children away.

And to me, he had said the reverse.

That his family found us common.

That they wanted him and not us.

That my children were an intrusion on a sacred tradition.

He had built two separate lies, aimed them in opposite directions, and stood in the gap between them collecting exactly what he wanted from each side — his family’s wealth and affection on the one hand, and, on the other, a wife and children isolated enough to keep entirely under his thumb.