CHAPTER TWO
SYDNEY
The Lewis family dinners happened on the second Sunday of every month in a dining room that had never once felt like a place where people came to enjoy one another.
Tobias asked if I wanted to skip it before we left the house.
"I can invent a work emergency," he offered as he drove. "You know I enjoy lying to my parents when the cause is worthy."
I smiled despite myself. "They'll know."
"They'll suspect. That's legally different."
Tyra laughed from the back seat.
I reached over and squeezed his hand. "It's one dinner. I'll survive."
Angela was already there when we arrived, seated beside her father, Walter. She belonged in rooms like the Lewis dining room in a way I never would. Her clothes were understated and expensive, her posture effortless, and she had known Tobias since childhood.
Nancy had wanted them married for as long as I had known her.
The difficult part was that Angela had never actually done anything to deserve my resentment. She was polite to me and kind to Tyra. If she was uncomfortable with Nancy's endless comparisons, she hid it well.
"Sydney," she said when I came in. "You look lovely."
"Thank you."
"Is that dress new?"
"A few years old."
"Then I'm jealous that it still fits you that well."
Nancy heard the exchange and smiled faintly. "Angela has always known how to invest in good pieces. Her mother taught her young."
There it was.
Dinner had barely started.
I let the first few comments go. I had learned to do that. Nancy asked Tyra about school, then turned every answer into an example of some advantage Angela had enjoyed as a child.
"Tyra's reading above grade level," I said when Nancy asked about her classes. "Her teacher wants to move her into the next reading group."
"How lovely," Nancy replied. "Angela was reading at a college level by ten."
Angela looked mortified. "I was a very strange child. Please don't use me as a standard for anyone."
Tyra grinned at her.
Nancy continued as though Angela had not spoken. "A strong foundation makes such a difference. Tutors when needed. Books in the home. Stability from the beginning. Children absorb more than adults expect."
Her gaze settled on me.
"You've done remarkably well with Tyra, of course, considering."
I put down my fork.
"Considering what?"
Tobias's hand moved under the table and closed over mine.
Nancy gave me the smile she saved for insults she wanted to deny later. "Only that raising a child alone under difficult circumstances cannot have been easy. You've managed remarkably well for yourself."
The message was clear. Tobias had rescued me. Whatever Tyra and I had become existed because a Lewis man had pulled us into a better life.
Usually I let comments like that pass. That night, with Finnegan's threat still sitting in my mind, I could not.
"I managed because I worked two jobs and showed up for my daughter every day," I said. "I did that when I was tired, broke, sick, and scared. It didn't have much to do with luck."
Walter became fascinated with his wineglass.
Angela stared at her plate.
Tyra went very still beside me.
Nancy lifted her brows. "I didn't mean to offend you."
"You rarely do," Tobias said.
His voice was quiet, which made everyone listen.
"Tobias," Harold warned.
"No. We've had this conversation before." Tobias looked directly at his mother. "Sydney is my wife. Tyra is my daughter. If you can't get through one dinner without implying that either of them is less welcome here than Angela would have been, we'll stop coming."
Nancy's mouth tightened. "You're being dramatic."
"I'm being clear."
Harold set down his fork. "There's no need to threaten your mother."
"It's not a threat. It's a boundary."
I looked at Tobias and loved him so fiercely in that moment that the secret inside me felt even uglier.
The rest of dinner passed with strained politeness.
Tyra fell asleep in the car on the way home. Tobias reached across the console and took my hand.
"I'm sorry."
"You don't have to apologize for her every month."
"Apparently I do, because she won't."
I watched the streetlights move across the windshield.
"Do you ever regret it?"
He glanced at me. "Regret what?"
"Us. The family drama. All of it."
The question came out before I could stop it.
Tobias pulled into an empty parking lot and put the car in park.
"Look at me."
I did.
"I don't regret you. I don't regret Tyra. I don't regret marrying you. I don't regret a single year of the life we've built. My parents being difficult is their failure, not yours."
My eyes burned.
He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles.
"Whatever has been bothering you lately, tell me when you're ready. There is nothing you can say that will make me stop loving you."
I believed him.
That was the worst part later.
I believed him completely.
When we reached home after the Lewis dinner, Tobias carried Tyra upstairs without waking her.
I stood in the kitchen and removed my earrings one at a time. The house felt especially quiet after his parents' dining room.
Tobias came back down ten minutes later.
"She's out. Didn't even complain when I took her shoes off."
"Miracle."
He came behind me and rested his hands on my hips.
"You okay?"
"Your mother thinks I raised Tyra in a cave."
"My mother thinks anyone without a family trust was raised in a cave."
I turned in his arms. "Why do you keep going?"
"To the dinners?"
I nodded.
Tobias was quiet. "Habit, partly. Guilt, probably. My father is good at making family obligation sound like a legal contract."
"You don't owe them attendance."
"I know."
"Then why make yourself miserable?"
He studied me. "Because for years I thought if I kept bringing you, eventually they'd get used to the fact that you're not leaving."
"They haven't."
"No."
I looked toward the dark windows. "Do you think they ever will?"
"I don't care as much as I used to."
That answer should have comforted me. Instead, I heard the unspoken as much as.
Tobias noticed.
"Syd."
"I'm being stupid."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Call yourself stupid before I can disagree with whatever you're about to say."
I smiled faintly. "I hate that they make me feel temporary."
His expression changed. "You aren't."
"I know what you say."
"No. Know what I do. I married you. I put your name on everything. I rearranged my life around Tyra's school schedule. There is no backup plan where Angela appears after you vanish."
I laughed. "Very romantic."
"I can add candles."
"Please don't."
He kissed my forehead.
Later in bed, Tobias fell asleep before I did. I lay beside him with my hand on my stomach without knowing why.
The thought of another baby had been moving quietly through me for months. I had not told Tobias how much I wanted it because wanting things still made me nervous. Wants could become debts. Wants could become evidence that I had asked for too much.
Beside me, Tobias slept with one hand open on the sheet between us. I slid my fingers into his. He tightened them around mine without waking.
For that moment, I believed permanence was something I could touch.
The next morning, Tyra brought up the dinner over pancakes.
"Grandma Nancy doesn't like Mom."
Tobias nearly dropped the syrup bottle.
"What makes you say that?"
Tyra looked at him as if he were slow.
"Everything."
I pressed my lips together.
"Tyra, grown-ups can have complicated relationships."
"She says mean things politely."
Tobias closed his eyes.
"That is disturbingly accurate."
"She likes Angela more."
I looked at Tobias.
He sat beside Tyra.
"My mother likes an idea of how my life should look. That doesn't mean her idea is right."
"Would you marry Angela if Mom left?"
I choked on coffee.
"No," Tobias said immediately.
Tyra considered him.
"Even if Grandma tells you to?"
"Especially then."
She seemed satisfied and returned to her pancakes.
After school drop-off, Tobias stayed in the car with me.
"I hate that she notices."
"Kids notice everything."
"I should stop taking you there."
I looked at him.
"Because of last night?"
"Because I've spent years acting like defending you after she insults you is enough."
That sentence stayed with me.
He understood the problem before our marriage collapsed.
He simply had not acted on it yet.
"Maybe we skip next month," I said.
"Done."
"That easy?"
"Yes."
I smiled.
If we had reached next month together, maybe we would have started changing those boundaries sooner.
We never got the chance.
That month we skipped the Lewis dinner.
Nancy called twice.
Tobias ignored the first call and answered the second only because she left a message claiming something was wrong with Harold.
Nothing was wrong with Harold.
"She weaponized Dad's blood pressure," Tobias said after hanging up.
"That feels on brand."
He laughed.
We took Tyra bowling instead.
Tobias was terrible. Tyra beat both of us and spent the ride home explaining that wealth clearly did not improve athletic ability.
For one evening, I forgot Nancy existed.
That was what made the later betrayal so painful. Tobias had already begun putting distance between himself and his parents.
He was moving in the right direction.
Then they found the one secret capable of making him doubt the marriage before those new boundaries became strong enough to hold.
Angela sent me a message after the family dinner.
I'm sorry about Nancy. For what it's worth, I hate being used as a comparison too.
I stared at it before answering.
You don't have anything to apologize for.
She replied with a heart and nothing else.
That small exchange made me dislike Nancy's game even more. She had turned two women into opposing symbols when neither of us wanted the role.
Angela was never my rival.
She was simply the woman Nancy preferred because she fit the picture already hanging in her mind.
After we skipped the next family dinner, Nancy sent Tobias a message saying she hoped I was not isolating him.
He showed it to me and laughed. I did not.
The accusation touched an old fear that people would always assume a woman like me wanted access to Tobias more than I wanted Tobias himself.
He deleted the message and told his mother we had made the decision together.
I remember loving him fiercely for that simple word: together.