She shoved her chair back. “I will not be ambushed like this,” she said, eyes shining.
“Not in front of outsiders.”
She looked at me, then looked away.
Jason spoke up, voice low and angry. “She’s not an outsider,” he said.
“She’s my wife. This is our home. You threw away her food and then tore her down like she was nothing.
I should have stopped you a long time ago.”
Diane opened her mouth, then closed it. No one else said a word.
Eventually, people started eating again, in awkward silence. The turkey she’d brought tasted like salty sponge.
My sides were the only things anyone complimented.
After everyone left, Jason and I stood in the quiet kitchen surrounded by dirty dishes and half-eaten food.
“It’s not your fault she’s like that,” I said.
“It kind of is,” he said.
“I let her get away with it for too long. I promise you, this was the last time.”
He pulled me into his arms and held me until my shoulders relaxed.
Over the next few months, everything changed.
Richard moved out. Diane exploded, cried, begged, then raged.
She blamed me, blamed him, blamed everyone but herself.
Richard stopped cleaning up her messes.
He came over for dinner a lot. He’d bring a bottle of wine and stories about apartment hunting and therapy.
“First time I’ve slept through the night in years,” he said once.
“It’s quiet. No drama.”
Diane, on the other hand, burned through the money she got in the divorce like it was on fire. She posted pictures on social media of fancy lunches and shopping trips like nothing had changed.
Then the posts slowed.
Then they stopped.
A few months later, there was a knock at our door.
Jason opened it, then stiffened. “Mom,” he said.
She stood on our porch in leggings and a hoodie, hair in a messy bun, no makeup. I’d never seen her look anything less than polished.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
Jason didn’t move.
“Why?” he asked.Continue reading…
