Emily nodded and ran her fingertip around the rim of her mug.
“The down payment for the house we want is sixty-eight thousand. We’ve been saving, but we only have half.”
They did not need to say more.
“How much do you need?” I asked.
Daniel looked down.
“If you sold this house, Mom, you could come live with us. You wouldn’t be alone. The kids adore you.”
Emily smiled then, warm and polished.
“It would be perfect, Mother-in-law. You help with the children. We take care of you. A real family.”
That word did it. Family.
I signed the sale papers three weeks later.
The old house with its high ceilings and forty-two years of memories sold for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. I gave Daniel sixty-eight thousand for the down payment and put the rest into savings, telling myself it would be my safety net if I ever needed one.
What I did not do, and what still haunts me, was insist on being put on the deed of the new house right away. Daniel told me it was unnecessary. He said the house was for all of us and there was no point complicating the paperwork.
And I, like a fool, trusted him.
The new place was in a gated subdivision called North Alpine Estates, with a security booth at the entrance and a little row of trimmed hedges in front of every house. Three bedrooms. Two and a half baths. A two-car garage. Clean, modern, and somehow cold.
The first few months were bearable. I got up at five in the morning. I made Daniel’s coffee the way he liked it, strong with a little cinnamon. I cooked breakfast, woke up Michael and Sarah, combed hair, packed lunches, and walked them to the school bus stop.
Emily would leave at seven-thirty in a fitted suit and expensive perfume, rushing out with her phone already in her hand. Daniel left half an hour later. Sometimes he kissed my forehead. Sometimes he just said, “Thanks, Mom,” without looking up.
And I stayed behind.
I cleared the dishes. I ran the laundry. I scrubbed the sinks. I mopped floors that never seemed clean enough for Emily. Every afternoon when she came home, she inspected the house like a health inspector.
“Mother-in-law, the mirrors have spots.”
“Mother-in-law, Michael’s shirt wasn’t ironed right.”
“Mother-in-law, why did you use so much detergent? It’s expensive.”
Never Beatrice. Never Betty, the name my friends had called me for years. Just “Mother-in-law,” as if it were a title for a servant and not a relationship.