I was 33, heavily pregnant with my fourth child, and still living under my in-laws’ roof when my mother-in-law looked me straight in the face and made it brutally clear what she thought I was worth.

If this baby wasn’t a boy, she said, I could take my three daughters and get out.

What shattered me even more was that my husband didn’t argue. He didn’t defend me. He didn’t even pretend to be shocked.

He just smirked and asked, “So when are you leaving?”

That was the moment something inside me began to die.

We were supposedly living with his parents to save for a house. That was the story Derek liked to tell people. It sounded practical, even responsible. But the truth was uglier. Derek loved being back in the role of the cherished son. His mother cooked his meals, his father covered most of the bills, and I became little more than unpaid labor in a house where I had no real place.

We already had three daughters. Mason was eight, Lily was five, and Harper was three. They were bright, loving, funny little girls who filled every part of my life with meaning.

To me, they were everything. To Patricia, they were failures.

She never even tried to hide it. When I was pregnant the first time, she’d said, with that sweet poison she wore like perfume, “Let’s hope you don’t ruin this family line, honey.” When Mason was born, she gave a disappointed sigh and said, “Well, next time.”

By the second pregnancy, she had sharpened her cruelty into habit.

“Some women just aren’t built for sons,” she told me. “Maybe it’s your side.”