I was thirty-three. I had the career I’d worked for. But my long-held mental image of a husband and kids had fragmented into a pixelated mess that day I’d chatted with Taya at her coffee shop in King’s Creek and learned about the trust. The day I’d removed my rose-colored glasses and seen my marriage for what it was.

Nothing.

“I was stupid for Aiden. His whole family knew, Mom.”

“Fuck them.” She said it so automatically, I doubt she realized when those words left her mouth. It was the McDonough family motto.

“I thought they were…” My in-laws were wonderful. Thoughtful. Witty. Each of them led interesting lives.

“Your shiny new family that was perfect?”

I scowled at Mom. Did she think I ignored them as soon as I’d gotten married?

Had I?

As a kid, I’d wanted to prove that I wasn’t a walking stereotype of poor and trashy. I’d worked to talk more like my teachers—one happened to live in the same trailer park. I’d idolized Mrs. Vance. She’d spoken eloquently and happily discussed the classics with me—and how much we’d disliked many of them. Mrs. Vance hadn’t stomped through town like she was permanently irritated, like Mom. She’d floated and worn colorful cardigans and T-shirts with witty sayings. She’d been a peaceful lake in my turbulent homelife.

Then there’d been Aiden and his family. The Kings were the opposite of how I was raised. Wealthy, with wide-open spaces. Aiden’s brothers were all good people. I had considered their wives friends. But I’d never fit in. Perhaps it was the secret they’d all kept from me that had made me flounder like a fish out of water when I was in their company.

“I liked them, Mom. But I was never one of them.”

“You’re as good as any of ’em.”

How many times had Mom told me that growing up? They’re no better than you, Katie.

My family dealt out body slams and half nelsons, not witty retorts, but the sentiment was the same. It’d given me the confidence to be the brainiac in class, the nerd no one invited to their party. No matter how different I tried to be, I always had a place in my uncouth family.

“You’re as good as any of them too,” I replied. Mom and my stepdad, Randall, had worked as hard as any of the Kings. Probably harder. And the return had been less. So much less, but they’d carved out a comfortable niche in this double-wide on the edges of Billings.

Mom arched another penciled-in brow. “That why you brought your deb-o-nair husband over so often?”