I cooked dinner,S. arranged flowers, lit candles and baked a cake from scratch. By evening, the apartment was filled with friends and relatives, music and conversation.
Even my sister-in-law Katie seemed relaxed. She was raising three children alone and had arranged childcare so she could enjoy the evening.
Everything felt perfect.
Then Barbara stood up and asked everyone for their attention.
She began by complimenting our beautiful apartment.
Then she started talking about Katie.
She explained how difficult life was for a single mother with three children and how desperately Katie needed more space.
And then came her solution.
Alex and I should give Katie our apartment.
I laughed at first because the suggestion was so absurd.
Barbara wasn’t joking.
Worse, neither was my husband.
Alex calmly announced that perhaps his mother was right. We could temporarily move in with Barbara, he said, and my parents could probably help us buy another apartment later.
Then he complained that he hadn’t even been allowed enough influence over the decorating anyway.
I stared at him.
This wasn’t some ridiculous idea his mother had invented spontaneously.
They had discussed it beforehand.
Katie was already looking around the apartment differently, almost as though she were imagining where her own furniture would go.
That was when my mother spoke.S
