“I thought you had the wrong number. I’m not your daughter-in-law anymore.”
She laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because she genuinely believed my divorce changed nothing.
“Stop being ridiculous. Almost thirty people are coming for Charles’s seventieth birthday. You’re making the herb roast, wild rice, braised beef parcels, garden salad, and that walnut cake Charles likes.”
She continued listing instructions as if the previous month had never happened.
For ten years, this had been my role.
Thanksgiving.
Birthdays.
Baptisms.
Anniversaries.
Sunday dinners.
While everyone else dressed nicely and poured wine, I cooked.
If I sat down for five minutes because my feet hurt, Beatrice would appear.
“A good wife doesn’t rest while her family needs her.”
Brian never defended me.
Not once.
He usually stared at his phone.
“Mom’s right, Samantha. Don’t make everything into a problem.”
The painful part was that cooking had once been my career.
