I took eight thousand dollars of the money they were quietly bleeding out of my marriage, and I spent it, in front of them, on a meal for the three people they had decided didn’t matter — my parents, and me.

It was not about the steak.

It was a sentence, spoken in the only tongue they understood: you do not get to eat my life for free anymore. And the twitch beside my husband’s eye told me he had heard it perfectly.

Chapter 7 — Our Marriage’s Account

“Are you out of your mind?” Ansel burst out the second the order was placed.

“That’s eight thousand dollars on one dinner!”