“You won’t believe it, Daddy. Yesterday, some guy named Pete came over to see Mommy, and they stayed in the bedroom for almost the whole evening,” four-year-old Maddie said casually, her focus entirely on braiding her favorite doll’s hair. “Who the hell is Pete?” Jack choked on his coffee, staring at his wife in sheer disbelief. On his face, confusion instantly curdled into a cold, sharp edge of suspicion.
“And then when it started getting dark, another man named Vince called. Mommy talked to him for so long she forgot to read me my bedtime story,” the child continued, her voice steady and innocent. “Maddie, honey, go to your room and play for a bit. Your mom and I need to have a serious talk,” Jack said through gritted teeth, closing the door firmly behind his daughter. When Christine first met Jack, she was already a self-made woman. Her grit and ambition were a formidable combination, the result of a life spent earning every inch of ground she stood on.
She was the kind of person you couldn’t ignore. It was that very magnetism that had made Jack hesitate for months, convinced a woman that sharp and independent would have no interest in a guy like him. Christine’s “iron spine” had been forged early. When she was only five, her parents went through a bitter divorce, leaving her mother to raise her alone in a small town where opportunities were scarce.
Her mother worked three jobs just to keep the lights on, often coming home only to sleep for a few hours before the next shift. By the time Christine was ten, she was running the household. She cooked, did the laundry, and handled her own schoolwork without being asked. She learned early that if she wanted something done right, she had to do it herself.
There were a few ruined shirts and burnt dinners along the way, but she mastered the domestic arts quickly. Getting into a top-tier state university on a full scholarship was her crowning achievement. She knew there was no safety net; if she failed, there was no money for tuition. She funneled every ounce of her willpower into her studies, eventually graduating at the top of her class with honors.
