Chapter 1 - Before Everything Fell Apart
Seven months earlier, Adelaide had believed she already knew what happiness looked like.
It looked like Sunday mornings in Elias’s kitchen, where he made pancakes that were always slightly burned around the edges.
It sounded like Sophie laughing as she covered those pancakes with far too much syrup.
It felt like Elias standing behind Adelaide, resting his chin on her shoulder while Sophie declared that their wedding needed three cakes—one for the adults, one for children, and one specifically for her stuffed rabbit.
Adelaide had met Elias two years earlier after Sophie developed a high fever and was brought to the hospital where Adelaide worked.
Elias had been terrified, though he tried not to show it.
Adelaide remembered how he had remained beside Sophie’s bed all night, reading the same story repeatedly because it was the only thing that kept his daughter calm.
Sophie recovered quickly.
Several weeks later, Elias returned to the hospital with a thank-you card that Sophie had decorated with crooked hearts.
Inside, she had written:
Thank you for fixing me. Daddy says you are the bravest doctor.
The friendship between Adelaide and Elias developed slowly.
Elias had lost his wife, Rebecca, when Sophie was only two. For years, he had devoted himself entirely to raising his daughter and expanding the architectural company he had inherited from his father.
Adelaide understood that Sophie would always come first.
She admired him for it.
When Elias finally asked Adelaide to dinner, he chose a small Italian restaurant instead of somewhere expensive.
“I thought this would feel less like a business meeting,” he explained.
“Do your business meetings usually involve pasta?”
“Only the successful ones.”
She laughed, and something in Elias’s careful expression softened.
A year later, he proposed in the same restaurant while Sophie hid behind a large menu, waiting to present Adelaide with the ring.
Adelaide said yes before Elias finished asking.
For a while, they were happy.
But there was one person who never accepted Adelaide’s place in their lives.
Margaret Lawson was Sophie’s maternal grandmother.
She visited every weekend, kept photographs of Rebecca throughout Elias’s home, and often reminded Sophie that no one could ever replace her mother.
Adelaide agreed with that completely.
She never tried to remove Rebecca’s photographs. She listened when Sophie asked questions about her mother and even helped Elias create a memory box containing Rebecca’s letters, jewelry, and favorite recipes.
But Margaret still watched Adelaide with suspicion.
“You seem comfortable here,” Margaret once remarked after finding Adelaide preparing breakfast in Elias’s kitchen.
“I spend a lot of time here.”
“Temporary guests often do.”
Elias had not heard the comment.
Adelaide did not tell him.
She wanted peace more than she wanted to be proven right.
The tension became worse after the engagement.
Margaret began questioning every decision Adelaide made.
She criticized the wedding date, the guest list, and even the dress Adelaide helped Sophie choose.
Then, one evening, Adelaide discovered that Margaret had asked a private investigator to examine her personal history.
Elias found the investigator’s report inside a folder Margaret had left in his office.
He confronted Margaret immediately.
She did not apologize.
“I needed to know who you were bringing into Sophie’s life,” she said.
“She is going to be my wife,” Elias replied.
“Rebecca was your wife.”
“Rebecca is gone.”
Margaret’s face changed at those words.
It was the first time Adelaide saw how much grief still controlled her.
Unfortunately, it was also the moment Margaret decided Adelaide was not merely an outsider.
May you like
She was a threat.
---
