"Yvonne was just being overly cautious. Don't take it personally. But I swear, she absolutely did not make you and Dad eat out of a dog bowl."
Fine. Even after I'd laid it all out like that, he still refused to admit it.
Then I had no choice but to convince him with hard evidence.
"See for yourself."
The screenshot showed a group chat. The name of the group was "Operation Takedown the Witch."
Yvonne was the group admin, and the members were her closest friends.
While Cary and I had been arguing, I'd received a WhatsApp message from an old friend of mine. Her daughter had some professional overlap with Yvonne and had been pulled into the group chat.
"The old witch insisted on eating at my place, so I served her with a dog bowl."
One short sentence, paired with a photo of me eating with my back to the camera. It earned Yvonne a flood of praise in the group.
"Go Yvonne! If the old hag doesn't understand boundaries, teach her a lesson."
The most enthusiastic cheerleader was someone I recognized: her best friend, Gloria Whitney.
Every single message Yvonne had posted was more outrageous than the last.