Chapter 1

I discovered a box of birth control pills in the widow’s room. I swapped them out for regular stomach medicine. The reason was simple: since my mother-in-law was so eager to have a grandchild, why not have one herself?

Later, Mrs. Welmann came over to see her and handed her a bank card. "This is your reward for giving our family a child."

I installed a miniature camera in our bedroom. After work, I often found that the neatly made bed had wrinkles, and the alarm clock or glass on the nightstand had subtly shifted. But there were only three people in our house: me, my husband Jeremy Kohn, and my mother-in-law, who had recently moved in.

Yet, just two months into our marriage, Jeremy wielded every trick in the book, employing a relentless charm and persuasion to convince me to welcome his mother into our home.

He swore, "My mom is just a weak woman; she won't interfere with our lives."

But on the second morning after she moved in, she knocked on our door at six o’clock.

"Fennie, why haven’t you made breakfast yet?"

When there was no response, she started pounding on the door. I dragged my tired body to open it.

"Mom, don’t we have a maid to make breakfast?"

"That’s expensive! It’s just breakfast; why waste money on that?" Her head barely reached my nose, but her presence was overwhelming as she stared me down.

Jeremy was still snoring like a log. Knowing he’d worked late the night before, I decided not to wake him. Resigned, I headed to the kitchen, reheated some bread, fried up eggs and ham, and made a sandwich.

She pushed the sandwich aside. "Is this all for breakfast? Are you trying to fool me?"

"Jeremy and I usually have this for breakfast. What would you like?"

"My needs aren’t that high. We must have oatmeal every morning, and it should be varied throughout the week. The sides can be simple, but there should always be fresh pastries and a hot breakfast sandwich. Meat is good, but it shouldn’t be too greasy—just like the ones from that fancy café downtown."

Her saliva sprayed onto my face as she ranted. I wiped my face, grabbed the keys, and went downstairs to buy breakfast for her.

She continued, her voice sharp with criticism, "I didn’t ask you to buy it; homemade is always healthier. Who knows what kind of oil or meat they use? And why are you walking away while I’m still talking?"

As time passed, her aggression grew more relentless. She chased away the hourly maid, leaving me buried under the mountain of housework. The washing machine was off-limits, as she insisted that hand-washing was the only way to ensure cleanliness.

She severed the power to the dishwasher, decrying it as a waste of electricity and water. In the dead of night, she would storm into our room to shut off the air conditioner,, saying she was worried we’d catch a cold...

I harbored a growing resentment.

It all came to a head when I saw the surveillance video.

Two days after installing the camera, I sat down to review the footage after finishing a project at work. With a sense of mounting dread, I fast-forwarded through the recordings of the past few days. What I saw left me stunned and breathless: Mr. Welmann was kissing my mother-in-law as they entered my bedroom. They tumbled onto my bed, entwined in a passionate embrace

Mr. Welmann lived next door, and he had a happy family. I would never expect that he would cheat with my mother-in-law?

As I watched their entangled bodies on the screen, a wave of nausea surged over me, overwhelming every sense. My stomach churned violently, and I stumbled toward the bathroom, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

Their movements were smooth and practiced, a damning testament to the fact that this betrayal was not a fleeting moment but a repeated, calculated affair.

Suppressing my trembling hands, I decided to tell Jeremy everything that night and then have a conversation with his mother.