I routinely bought her medications, drove her to medical appointments, and patiently swallowed her constant complaints without ever talking back, simply because I wanted to believe we were still a family.

Yet there was my husband at midnight, promising another child that he would go see him the next day.

“Did you have to stay upstairs with her again?” the woman on the phone asked with an impatient tone.

“Yes, Brenda,” Kenneth answered softly.

“Giselle wanted us to sleep together for our anniversary, so I had to do it so she wouldn’t suspect anything.”

I felt the wooden handrail tremble beneath my tight grip as my mother-in-law’s bedroom door opened down the hall.

I initially assumed she was coming downstairs to complain about the noise, but instead, she walked over to the sofa, sat down right beside Kenneth, and smiled warmly at the screen.

“My precious Liam!” she cooed happily.

“Have you taken your medicine yet?”

“Yes, Grandma,” the little voice replied from the speaker.

I had spent three exhausting years taking care of that woman while she regularly met the grandson she had kept hidden from me, all while listening to her subtly insinuate that I was defective for not giving her son children.

“I don’t want to keep renting forever,” Brenda sighed loudly through the phone.

“You promised me an apartment before Liam starts pre-K.”

“I’m sorting out the money right now,” Kenneth assured her.