Routine, Cracking at the Edges
Tuesday, October 15 felt ordinary — coffee hissing, the morning news murmuring, my husband Kenneth buttoning his shirt for another day at Hartwell Construction.
I’m Grace, director of our city’s largest recreation center, fifteen years into a marriage I believed was steady, if not always passionate.
What most people didn’t know? Hartwell Construction had been bought years ago by my brother, Damian Morrison. Kenneth reported through Damian’s executive team. It worked because we kept boundaries clear — family was family; business was business.
Only one person refused to respect those boundaries: Catherine, my mother-in-law. She’d always considered me unworthy of her son, and lately her comments had turned personal — digs about my background, my education, even my “blood.”
