The Burden
The pungent smell of burning charcoal and bourbon-glazed ribs permeated the thick July air of Atlanta’s most exclusive neighborhood. The Patterson mansion’s sprawling backyard—two acres of perfectly manicured lawn, imported Italian stone pathways, and a custom-built gazebo that had been featured in Southern Living—was packed with forty guests milling between the buffet tables and the Olympic-sized pool.
I stood beside the drinks table holding a glass of iced tea I hadn’t touched in twenty minutes, watching my husband hold court like the king he believed himself to be. The pale blue floral dress I wore had been Mark’s choice three years ago—he’d said it made me look “appropriate for a CEO’s wife.” Today, he’d told me it looked “old-fashioned and dowdy.” I’d worn it anyway.
My name is Elena Morales Patterson, though I’d be dropping that last name soon enough. Thirty-four years old, raised in the Georgia foster care system, college graduate on a full scholarship, former forensic accountant. For the past five years, I’d been Mrs. Mark Patterson, wife of the CEO of Patterson Logistics, a woman expected to smile prettily at charity galas and never ask questions about where the money actually went.
Mark stood in the center of a circle of admirers—business partners in golf shirts, neighbors who drove German cars, distant relatives who only appeared when there was free premium alcohol. He was holding court with a bottle of craft beer, his handsome face flushed with heat and ego, laughing at his own jokes about quarterly earnings and commercial shipping routes. At forty-two, Mark Patterson still had the athletic build of his college football days, the charm of a born salesman, and the moral compass of a broken slot machine.
Seated in the most prominent position under the gazebo was Barbara Patterson, my mother-in-law, perched in a white wicker throne like a duchess surveying her domain. Even in ninety-degree heat, she wore her signature Chanel suit and Dior sunglasses, her silver hair styled in the same helmet she’d maintained since the Reagan administration. Through those dark lenses, I could feel her contemptuous gaze tracking my every movement, the same look she’d given me the first time Mark brought me home six years ago.
“An orphan,” she’d said, not to me but about me, as if I were a piece of furniture being evaluated. “How… charitable of you, Mark.”
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