Rose paced her parents' living room, each step calculated to display distress. Tears streaked her makeup, deliberately ruined before her arrival. The afternoon sun highlighted her red eyes and trembling hands as she clutched a disintegrating tissue.

"I don't know what else to do," she sobbed. "Stefan barely talks to me. He sleeps at his family home every night."

Margaret Lewis watched with exhaustion. The past weeks had stripped years from her face, ...