For nearly five years, Lydia Harper believed that patience could fix almost anything. She had always been the kind of person who avoided conflict, who smiled politely even when conversations turned tense, who convinced herself that if she remained calm long enough, people would eventually meet her halfway.Lydia grew up in a small coastal town in Oregon where life moved slowly. Neighbors waved from porches, children biked down quiet streets, and conversations stretched easily across afternoons. When she married Christopher Halbrook and moved across the country to North Carolina, she told herself the uneasiness she felt was simply the adjustment to a new place.
But Christopher’s family lived very differently.