Emily expected her boyfriend’s mother to be cold at the birthday dinner. She did not expect to be mocked in front of the entire family or to realize, in that moment, that the gift in her bag was about to silence the table.

I knew Daniel’s mother hated me long before she ever said it out loud.

Some women can smile while they’re cutting you open. Patricia was one of them.

The first time I met her, she hugged Daniel, looked me up and down, and said, “Oh. You’re prettier than I expected, but he usually goes for more… polished women.”

She said it with a laugh, like I was supposed to laugh too.

I didn’t.

Daniel squeezed my hand under the table that day and whispered, “She’s awkward. Don’t take it personally.”

But it was always personal.

If I brought dessert to dinner, Patricia would say, “How sweet. Homemade has such a rustic charm.”

If I wore a dress, she would ask if it was from “one of those little online boutiques.”

For two years, I kept telling myself it would get better.

For two years, Daniel kept saying, “Give her time.”

Then came her birthday dinner.

I did not want to go.

I was standing in our kitchen in front of the sink, twisting my earrings in, when Daniel came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Please come,” he said into my hair.

I looked at his reflection in the window over the sink. “Your mother barely tolerates me on a normal day. Why would I spend three hours in her house while she hosts an audience?”

He turned me around. “Because she invited you.”

I gave him a look.

He exhaled. “I know. I know. But that’s progress for her.”

“Daniel, last month she called me ‘that girl’ in front of your aunt.”

He winced. “She corrected herself.”

“After I walked into the room.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, the way he did when he knew I was right but wanted me to stop talking anyway.

“She’s trying,” he said. “Can you at least meet her halfway?”

That sentence bothered me because I had spent two years walking the full distance alone.

But I loved him, so I went.

And the second we pulled into the circular driveway of his parents’ house, I knew I had made a mistake.

I had barely stepped inside when Patricia appeared in the entryway wearing a cream silk dress and that exact smile she used when she was about to embarrass me.

“There you are,” she said to Daniel, kissing his cheek. Then she turned to me. “Emily. You made it.”

Not “I’m glad you’re here.” Just a surprise that I had, in fact, shown up.

I handed her the gift bag I had brought. “Happy birthday.”

She glanced at it, then passed it to a side table without opening it. “How thoughtful.”

Her eyes lingered on my dress.

Daniel had picked it out with me. He said it made me look elegant.

Patricia tilted her head. “That’s a lovely color. Bold choice for an evening event.”

I simply smiled back.

The house was already full. Daniel’s older sister, Rebecca, was there with her husband. His cousins were in the sitting room. An aunt I had met twice kissed Daniel and barely nodded at me. Someone had lit expensive candles that smelled like cedar and money.

I stayed close to Daniel through drinks, through stiff small talk, through Patricia making a point of introducing me to one elderly relative as “Daniel’s friend Emily.”

Daniel opened his mouth, probably to correct her, but Patricia had already floated away toward the dining room.

He touched my arm. “Don’t.”

I stared at him. “Don’t what? React to your mother erasing me in front of people?”

“Not tonight,” he said quietly.

Dinner was worse.