Chapter 2 - Three Years of Small Cuts
For three years I had worked very hard to believe this woman didn't hate me.
She always said she didn't. Grant used to say it too, back at the start.
"She's just protective."
"She's slow to warm up to people."
"She doesn't handle change well."
After a while, even Grant stopped saying it.
Diane had an opinion about everything I was. My job, my apartment, my parents, the clothes I wore, the way I seasoned food, the fact that Grant made almost three times what I did. Once, with me sitting right next to him at her dining table, she told him, "Marriage gets expensive, honey. Just make sure you're marrying someone who brings more to the table than problems."
Grant set his glass down. "Mom, our money is not your business."
She smiled at her plate. "I wasn't talking about money."
That was Diane in one sentence. She could open you up with a smile and then look genuinely puzzled that you were bleeding.
May you like
The wedding turned the dial all the way up. She hated the venue. She hated the flowers. She hated the color I'd picked for the bridesmaids. Two weeks before the date she asked Grant, in the car, if he was "a hundred percent sure." He said yes. She asked again a few days later. He told her to drop it.
So no — when I looked down at that stain climbing up my skirt, I did not give her the benefit of the doubt.
