My daughter-in-law shoved greasy plates at me and said, “Could you finish these? My mother prefers her wine chilled.” My son poured Brenda a glass while I stood by the sink like hired help. I quietly dried my hands, put on my coat, and left without washing a single dish.
The clinking of wine glasses reached me from the dining room just as Rachel pressed a stack of warm, greasy plates toward my chest. She had already turned halfway toward the living room before she finished speaking, as if there were no possibility I might refuse.
“Could you finish these up, Patricia? My mother prefers her wine chilled, and I need to entertain.”
I caught the plates automatically. That was the embarrassing part, because my hands moved before my mind did, trained by a full year of Sunday dinners to accept whatever Rachel handed me.
Through the wide archway, I could see my son David standing beside the leather sofa, pouring a generous glass of white wine for Rachel’s mother. Brenda, with her carefully styled silver-blond hair and cream cashmere sweater, laughed at something he said and sank comfortably into the cushions.
I had helped pay for that sofa six months earlier.
Rachel had called me from the furniture showroom because the one they wanted was “just a little outside the budget,” and I had covered the difference without making them feel embarrassed. I remembered David hugging me afterward and saying, “You always come through, Mom.”
At the time, I’d been happy to hear it.
Now, standing in front of their sink with someone else’s dinner plates in my arms, those same words sounded different.
Sunday dinner had become a routine so gradually that I couldn’t say exactly when I stopped being treated like a guest. I would arrive early, usually around four, because Rachel always needed “just a little help” preparing the meal.
A little help meant peeling potatoes, chopping vegetables, setting the table, entertaining my grandchildren while she finished getting dressed, and making whatever side dish she had forgotten. Rachel’s mother usually arrived shortly before dinner, carrying either a bottle of wine or nothing at all.
Brenda was never asked to chop onions.
She was never asked to scrape casserole dishes.
She was certainly never told to finish the cleanup while everyone else relaxed.
At first, I explained it away. Brenda lived farther away. Brenda had a bad back. Brenda was a guest.
The flaw in that reasoning was obvious if I had bothered to examine it.
I was supposed to be a guest too.
