“Whatever it is, money is no object tonight,” Daniel said.
Michael shot his hand up like he was in school.
“Am I going?”
“Of course, champ.”
“The whole family,” Daniel said.
My heart skipped. The whole family. That included me, did it not?
I set the pancakes on the table and wiped my hands on my apron.
“What time should I be ready?” I asked.
Emily looked at me with that blank little pause, like she had forgotten I was in the room.
“Ready for what?”
“The reservation. The family dinner.”
The silence that followed was sharp and ugly. Daniel cleared his throat. Emily exchanged a glance with him, the kind of glance that speaks in a whole language of contempt.
“Oh no, Mother-in-law,” Emily said, smiling with her mouth and not her eyes. “It’s an intimate dinner. Just us, the kids, and my mom. Direct family.”
Those two words hit me like broken glass.
“I understand,” I said.
I turned back to the stove though there was nothing left to cook.
Emily kept talking as if she were spreading butter over a harmless point.
“Besides, someone has to stay with the house, right? We can’t just leave it empty. And you cook so well. I’m sure you’ll make yourself something nice.”
Daniel said nothing. He just stared at his plate of eggs.
At eleven that morning, they left. Emily changed outfits three times before choosing the red dress. The kids were excited in their nice clothes. Daniel gave me a quick kiss on the forehead, so automatic it felt like muscle memory instead of love.
“Don’t wait up for us, Mom. We’ll be late.”
And then they were gone.
The house went so quiet it felt heavy. I walked through the living room, through the dining room with the glass table I polished every day, through the kitchen where I spent hours making meals nobody really thanked me for. Everything was spotless. Everything was in order. I was the only thing in that house nobody seemed to see.
I made myself instant soup, the cheap kind sold in packs. I did not sit in the dining room. The help does not eat in the dining room, right? That was what I was by then. The help. The help who had paid sixty-eight thousand dollars for the privilege of working for free.
At seven that evening, I opened Instagram. Maybe I needed proof of what I already knew.
The first photo was Emily in her red dress holding a glass of sparkling wine.
The second was my grandchildren with oversized plates of fried shrimp and fries.
The third was the whole table.