For most of my marriage, Vivian made sure I understood that I did not belong in that house.
The Hartwell residence stood on Wrenwood Avenue, behind iron gates and old oak trees in one of Northcrest’s most expensive neighborhoods.
It was not a mansion in the flashy sense.
No marble lions.
No glass elevators.
It was older than that kind of wealth.
Red brick.
Tall white-framed windows.
A slate roof.
A long back porch overlooking gardens planted decades before I was born.
The Hartwells had occupied it for three generations.
Vivian spoke about the place as if blood itself had been mixed into the mortar.
At my first Thanksgiving there, before Nolan and I were married, she corrected the way I arranged a serving spoon.
Not because I had done anything wrong.
