At my son’s wedding, I sat quietly in my little blue department-store dress while his bride’s family treated me like a harmless small-town widow they had generously agreed to tolerate, right up until the moment his mother-in-law glanced at me, smirked to her sister, and said just loud enough for the front row to hear, “That’s not a mother, that’s a mistake in a dress.”

A woman who says “Daddy” at thirty-two in a cashmere sweater has usually been taught that money is a language she is expected to speak fluently. After dinner, Hudson hugged me in the parking lot and asked, “Well, what do you think?”

“She’s very polished,” I said. He laughed and told me that was one word for it, so I let it pass because you do not swat at your child’s joy unless you are certain it is fire.

The second time I met Brianna, she brought her mother, Meredith DeWitt. Hudson called three days beforehand and said, “Meredith is very involved, Mom, so they want to stop by on Sunday.”

When Meredith arrived, she looked around my house with the expression of a woman touring a museum of lower expectations. She was dressed in shades of winter white that would have been suicidal in any practical household.

“Diane,” Meredith said, taking both my hands, “what a treat. Brianna has told me so much.” I doubted that very much as she settled into my husband’s old recliner without asking.

“This is charming,” she said, scanning the room. “So cozy.” I knew that “cozy” is what wealthy women call houses too modest to impress them but too clean to criticize.