Ryan always noticed.
“She’ll soften,” he would whisper, squeezing my hand under the table. “Just give her time.”
It certainly didn’t help my children.
Emma was five when Ryan and I married. Liam was seven. They weren’t his biologically, but he never treated them as anything less than his own. He showed up for them in ways their biological father never had. He learned their routines, their fears, their favorite bedtime stories. He built pillow forts, flipped pancakes on Saturday mornings, and patiently listened to endless stories about school.
Margaret saw none of that.
Or maybe she did, and chose to ignore it.
I remember one Sunday dinner at her house, carrying empty plates toward the kitchen, when I overheard her whispering to a friend.
“The children aren’t even his,” she said, her voice low and sharp. “She trapped him with a ready-made family. It’s obvious.”
I froze in the hallway, my hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped the dishes.
That night, I cried in Ryan’s arms, my heart breaking all over again.
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