Michael Reeves stood outside the wide kitchen window, his hands wrapped around a pair of pruning shears that trembled despite his effort to stay still. From his position beside the rose bushes, he could see straight into the heart of the house he had designed, financed, and once believed would be a sanctuary for his family. Inside, his fiancée Patricia Knox stood rigid near the marble island, her posture sharp with irritation, while her voice cut through the air like glass.
“Are you incapable of following a single instruction,” she snapped, shoving six year old Abigail so hard that the child stumbled into the counter and let out a muffled cry. “I told you the table must be ready before breakfast. Not after. Is that really so difficult to understand.”