I truly believed I had married into the kind of family people only talk about in movies. The warm kind. The supportive kind. The kind that shows up with open arms and good intentions. For years, I told myself how lucky I was—until a single “generous” offer from my mother-in-law turned into the most terrifying fight of my life.I fell in love with Arthur because he noticed things other people missed. Not just anniversaries or favorite songs, but the small details—how I preferred lemon in my tea, how I still flinched when someone mentioned roller skates because I’d broken my wrist as a kid, how I liked my coffee just a little weaker than most. He listened. He remembered. He cared.

We met at a wedding, stuck at the so-called singles table, both pretending we weren’t being subtly set up. I’d spilled red wine down the front of my dress before dinner even started. Without hesitation, Arthur slipped off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders with an awkward smile. “Now you’re fashionably clumsy,” he said. That gentle humor was all it took.We married two years later in a small ceremony by the lake where we’d had our first date. Fireflies hovered in the dusk, string lights reflected on the water, and his mother, Linda, cried through the entire thing. Afterward, she squeezed my hands and whispered, “You’re exactly what my son needed.” I believed her.

Linda didn’t fit the stereotype of a difficult mother-in-law. She was affectionate, attentive, the type who called just to check in and showed up with soup if she heard you sneeze. For years, she treated me like a daughter. I never doubted her love.

Arthur and I started trying for a baby soon after the wedding. Months passed. Then years. Each negative test chipped away at me. Eventually, we turned to IVF. Three rounds. Three failures. The last one left me curled on the bathroom floor, sobbing so hard I couldn’t breathe.