He knelt beside me and held my hand.
“I’m sorry. I’ll talk to her.”
He did talk to her.
She cried, apologized, and promised to be more welcoming.
For two weeks, she behaved almost like a normal future mother-in-law.
Then she told Ryan that I was probably interested in his money.
He defended me.
She said I was trying to separate him from his family.
He defended me again.
She criticized my job, my apartment, my clothes, and eventually my mother.
Every time, Ryan stood up for me.
But every time, he also asked me to be patient.
“She’s been alone for a long time,” he would say. “She worries about losing me.”
I understood fear.
What I didn’t understand was why her fear always seemed to require me to suffer.
Two years into our relationship, Ryan proposed.
We were standing on a wooden bridge overlooking a quiet lake when he took a small box from his jacket.
