Chapter 1

Back in elementary school, a boy set my hair on fire when I wasn't looking. My parents went to have words with his family, and they said kids don't know any better.

So that same day I set the boy's hair on fire, and the next day I found my chance and set his little sister's hair on fire too. When his family came to our door to have it out, my dad said kids don't know any better.

In middle school, a classmate accused me of stealing his eraser, so I had my dad buy a few thousand erasers, and I handed them out at the school gate. Every single student got one.

And the classmate who'd framed me transferred out after that.

In college, after a party, a boy in my class walked me home.

Later, when this boy confessed to me and I turned him down, he started spreading a filthy rumor around campus, saying he'd slept with me that night.

So I took my recording to the police, and after that this boy never showed his face on campus again.

And I became the poster child for being sharp-tongued, mean, and someone who never let a slight go unanswered.

Over time, I had no friends left, and no boy ever chased after me.

I'd already made my peace with growing old alone. And then, right around then, my current husband, Dustin Lambert, came into the picture.

Dustin was my coworker. Like me, he was past thirty and unmarried. The difference was that Dustin had two exes.

Both of those relationships had gotten to the point of talking marriage, and both had ended in a breakup.

According to Dustin, his mother was an extremely domineering woman, and both of his exes had broken up with him because they couldn't stand his family.

Dustin figured that marrying me would be a case of fighting poison with poison.

I agreed without a second thought.

That same day, Dustin took me home to meet his parents.

We got to Dustin's front door and it was shut tight. He knocked for a good while before a woman in her fifties, well-preserved for her age, opened it.

Dustin had shown me a photo of his mother. The woman in front of me was my mother-in-law, Ethel Chavez.

Ethel looked me up and down, like she was inspecting a piece of merchandise.

"Come in."

Her voice was ice-cold, her nose in the air, her eyes practically up on her forehead.

Dustin led me into the living room. Ethel sat down on the sofa, but she didn't offer me or Dustin a seat.

And Dustin's father, Phineas Lambert, lay on the sofa reading his paper. He didn't so much as glance at us.

Five minutes went by, and Dustin and I were still standing there while Ethel had already picked up a cup of tea and started sipping it.

I knew this was Ethel putting me in my place.

I just pulled Dustin down onto the sofa with me. The second she saw it, Ethel jabbed a finger at me and said loudly, "No manners at all. Did I tell you to sit?"

Sitting on the sofa, I said, unhurried, "May I ask what you mean by manners? A guest comes to your home, you won't let them sit, you won't pour them any water. Now that's a household with real manners."

Ethel visibly froze, as if it had never crossed her mind that I wouldn't give her the slightest bit of face.

"You—you dare say I have no manners? You—you're the younger one here, and you don't know your place at all..."

I looked at Ethel up there on her high horse and didn't give her an inch.

"You're the one who insisted on bringing up manners. I'm just filling you in on what the most basic manners are. Back in preschool, my teacher taught me that when a guest comes to your home, you invite them to sit. Don't tell me you never had a teacher teach you that?"

Seeing Ethel about to blow up, I went on, "Oh, that's right, I remember now. Dustin tells me you're a university professor, no less."

"You—you're my daughter-in-law, that doesn't make you a guest."

"Well, if I'm your daughter-in-law, then I've come home to my own house, haven't I? I sit down when I feel like it. That doesn't seem to have anything to do with manners, does it?"