When Violet’s father-in-law walks into their living room holding onto DNA test results—claiming that Mona, her daughter, isn’t her husband’s child—Violet begins to spiral. She pleads for her husband to take another test to prove her innocence, only for a series of secrets to come undone.
I always thought I knew what shock felt like—until the day my father-in-law, Ron, stood in our living room, his face twisted in contempt, holding a piece of paper that he claimed could shatter my world.
An unhappy older man | Source: Unsplash
“You have to leave,” he declared, his voice cold and sharp. “You and your daughter.”
His eyes drilled into mine, gleaming with cruel satisfaction.
I stared at him, disbelief anchoring me to the spot on the couch, as I held Mona, my daughter, to my chest.
“What are you talking about, Ron? Why would we leave?” I asked him.
A mom holding her baby | Source: Unsplash
“That child isn’t Jake’s baby!” he spat out, thrusting a DNA test result at me. The room spun around me, the walls closing in. Ron shook the paper until it fell to the floor.
How could this be when I had never doubted the paternity of our little girl, Mona?
Since I joined the family, I have always struggled with Ron. He had always undermined me and refused to take me seriously.
A folded piece of paper on the floor | Source: Unsplash
Once, during a dinner just before we got married, Ron was especially harsh.
“Are you sure you want to marry this girl?” Ron asked Jake while carving into a roast chicken.
“Of course, he does,” Stella, Jake’s mother, said, passing around mashed potatoes.
Roast chicken on a plate | Source: Unsplash
“I’m sure, Dad,” Jake said, clutching my hand under the table.
But Ron kept poking at me the entire evening; he questioned my intentions about marrying Jake. He wanted to know whether I was in it for the right reasons.
“Come on, Violet,” he said. “It’s okay to want to marry...
