That hope became my hiding place.
***
My mother-in-law, Margaret, lived about forty minutes away.
She was sixty-one, recently retired from a career as a nurse, and had a habit of asking questions that made people uncomfortable because she actually expected honest answers.
When Ryan and I married, I had been nervous about our relationship.
I had heard too many stories about mothers who considered their sons incapable of wrongdoing.
Margaret was different.
She welcomed me into the family without making me feel that I had to compete with her.
She taught me her recipe for apple pie, gave me my father’s old-fashioned sewing box after I mentioned that I wanted to learn how to mend clothes, and called me every Sunday evening.
When I became pregnant, she cried almost as hard as Ryan had.
She bought us a collection of children’s books and promised to babysit whenever we needed a break.
