They did, to their credit, have me figured out almost from the start. It’s too bad. I had been hoping for years of fake cheer, of holidays spent at their huge oceanfront home, the girls unwrapping piles of presents in front of their three-story live Christmas tree. We’d go to the club, where my mother-in-law, who would insist I call her Mom, would introduce me to all of her bridge club friends. My father-in-law would beam at his son and tell him he married above his rank, that he wished his wife had been so beautiful in her day.

Okay, he wouldn’t say that, not in front of her. But a girl can dream. They never did welcome us over for holidays, and didn’t include us as a couple socially in anything at the club. David and his dad play golf every week, and I know he goes to lunch with his mom at least once a month. They don’t include me. Never have.

I hop onto the kitchen counter, carefully climb onto my knees. The stone is cold and hard on my bare legs, but I ignore the sensation as I reach up and grab the pitcher from the display shelf. I don’t feel much these days, except anger. I feel that deep in my bones.

I place the pitcher on the counter. It’s a rooster or something birdlike. “From Tuscany,” David had said at the time as he unwrapped the gift. “Aren’t they great? They didn’t have to bring us a gift. I think they’ll come around.”

He’d pulled me to him, so young, so hopeful. We’d just returned from our two-week honeymoon in French Polynesia. We were tan, relaxed.

“Maybe we should invite them to dinner this week?” I suggested. I’d already won, David and I were married, without a prenup. I didn’t stand to gain anything by alienating them. I wanted them on my side. Their generous resources could have been nothing but an additional blessing.

But alas, David’s parents are an interesting pair. I hadn’t fully appreciated their strong wills, their joint and unified hatred of me. By now, twenty years later, they simply stare at me with contempt. At the memorial service they eyed me stone-faced. But they know they need to behave in order to see their only grandchildren. Grandchild.

I think they blame me for Mary’s death. I’m a convenient scapegoat, I suppose. I don’t know why I feel that way. Intuition, I suppose. It’s the way they look at me now, their loathing has an added element, like when they averted their eyes when I saw them at the memorial service, for example. Their behavior is something akin to fear. If so, they’re going to be utterly shocked when it turns out that it’s Betsy’s fault. That Mary was murdered.