My MIL kept licking the serving spoon and putting it back in our food
I wanted to ask what he meant.
Instead, I let him turn out the light. Perhaps tomorrow I wouldn’t have to explain the same request again.
“Nothing.”
***
Diane was at the kitchen table when Mark arrived with a breakfast tray under a shiny metal dome.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Thought I’d take care of my mom for once.”
She beamed and lifted the lid.
When she what he’d served her, the smile fell off her face.
“What’s this?”
The toast sagged in the middle, its browned edges crumpled around a dark, sodden patch. A sheen coated the sausages, and one had a flattened end.
The eggs glistened in a way that was not natural at all.
“Noah and I sucked on every piece,” Mark said. “We’re family, Mom. Right?”
My stomach turned. I pictured picking up that toast without knowing, and suddenly wanted the lid back on.
“We’re family, Mom. Right?”
She shoved back her chair.
“How the hell could you do this to me?! I’m your mother!”
“You said being family made it okay. Does that only work when it’s our food?”
“I tasted a spoon,” she added. “You deliberately ruined an entire breakfast.”
“You need to respect the food in this house. It’s a condition of staying here.”
Then Diane snapped, “Then why did you tell me to rent out my condo?”
“How the hell could you do this to me?! I’m your mother!”
“What?” I straightened and looked at Mark. “What does she mean?”
“Claire, uh… let me explain.” He covered the breakfast tray again, suddenly sheepish. “The condo was ready two weeks ago. Mom wanted to stay. I told her she could rent it out.”
I put my coffee on the counter.
“You told her she could stay here? Without asking me?”
“What does she mean?”
“I thought we’d all get used to it. Then we could discuss making it permanent.”
At the bedroom calendar, I’d been crossing off days. He’d watched me do it.
I pictured the clothes I’d moved from the hall closet, still stacked in our room because there was no point finding another place for them yet.
“Did you know when you asked me to be patient last week?”
I’d been crossing off days.
He looked down.
“Yes.”
Diane folded her arms.
“My son promised me a home. And now you’ve turned the whole situation hostile.”
I looked at the tray. A moment ago, I’d wanted to thank him.
“So what was this supposed to fix?”
“Yes.”
“The food,” he said. “I thought if Mom understood, you wouldn’t be so uncomfortable. She helps with Noah. You wouldn’t be rushing to collect him, and she’d have family around.”
“And if I still didn’t want to live together?”
“We hadn’t got that far.”
“You’d already told her to rent out her home! That’s not something you can overturn quickly.”
“The food,”
He drew out a chair.
“Can’t we try it with some proper rules?”
I stayed by the counter. Sitting down felt too much like beginning the discussion he’d planned to have after the decision.
“I agreed to six weeks.”
“Her condo has a tenant now.”
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