Eight months pregnant, I had been moving through my days like someone carrying a glass globe in both hands—careful with my steps, careful with my breath, careful with my emotions, because anything too sharp felt like it could crack me. I had tried to make peace with my husband’s family the way you make peace with bad weather: you don’t pretend it’s pleasant, you just dress warmly and hope it passes. Greta, my mother-in-law, had always treated me like an intruder who’d wandered into the wrong house and refused to leave. She smiled for photographs and spoke in syrupy tones in front of neighbors, but in private she was flint and vinegar, especially whenever Lars wasn’t around.

His sister Eliza was worse because she was younger and hungrier, the kind of person who didn’t just dislike you—she needed you to know it. For months, I had swallowed their barbs, convinced myself that if I stayed kind, stayed quiet, stayed useful, they would eventually soften. I brought pastries to Sunday lunches. I offered to help clear the table. I complimented Greta’s cooking even when it was too salty, laughed at Eliza’s jokes even when they were about “gold-diggers” and “baby traps,” and pretended the air in that house wasn’t charged with something ugly.