I was cleaning the house; I swept every corner and got down on my knees, scrubbing the wooden floors until they gleamed like new pennies. Then, as if summoned by some shadow, my mother-in-law tossed empty cashew shells all over the freshly washed floor with a sly flick of her ancient wrist. All at once, the shells seemed to multiply, flooding the grains like a crumbling mosaic, and I stared at her, utterly bewildered. Her eyes glittered with mischief, like a cat plotting under lamplight.
“Mum, why did you do that?” I managed to ask, the air thick with disbelief. “I saw you do it on purpose!”
She shot me a look laced with contempt, lips curling. “You’ll do it again! Have you forgotten how to use a mop? Nothing terrible will happen to you!”
With that, satisfied by her little prank, she retreated to her beda massive brass thing that seemed to float a foot above the carpet. I slipped into the other room as if the house was a shifting maze, grabbed the stiff broom and silver dustpan, and began sweeping with the fatigue of someone lost in a peculiar loop.
My mother-in-law opened an old newspaper, the pages rustling like autumn leaves swirling outside. She’d read it so many times, the ink smudged into ghostly patterns. I broke, my voice tremulous. “Why do you dislike me so much?” I asked, words tumbling like marbles. “What have I done to deserve this constant scorn? I cook, I clean, I wash your clothes. And Mary always helps! Why do you persist in mocking me?” It was as if the wallpaper leaned in to listen.
She didn’t turn her head. Didnt utter a word. Not even the shadow of an apology or reason.
Tears emerged without warning, hot and stinging. I finished mopping, drifting out like a hung-over spirit, rolling towels and rags in the laundry basket, then trailing to the local greengrocerwhere the vegetables seemed to grow faces and whisper secrets.
There was always so much to do at home, the days smudging together like oil paint. Work was mindless, time melting away unnoticed.
My husband died many years ago, on a grey November when the rain ran upside down. Mary, our daughter, was just eighta tiny dream flitting through the drizzle.
After the funeral, my mother-in-law said, her voice echoing in the mist-heavy kitchen, “Stay with me. You mustnt go wandering off. No one in the village will gossip that I’ve tossed you to the pavement.”
I hadnt anywhere else, really. My sister and her pair of tow-headed kids crowded my parents’ old house. There wasnt a patch of floor or sunlight left for Mary and me, just memories and packed shoes.
I had desperately hoped that, despite her sour moods and tetchy habits, wed find common ground. But the miracle remained stubbornly absent.
Out amongst neighbours, my mother-in-law played her partsmiling, nodding, polite as a Sunday hat. But alone with me, she became a different ghost, one that mocked and commanded as if we were pieces on a chessboard she alone understood.
Youre hopeless! she hissed. No one wants you, not a single man. Youve got a child, dont forget! Just stay with me and Mary. When I die, youll get the house. But if you cross me, Ill leave it to someone else, and then what will you have?
That threat chilled me; so I acquiesced, knuckled under, and endured, for Marys sake, who deserved buttercups and blue skies, not storm clouds and creaky floors.
My mother-in-law, impossibly resilient, persisted into her nineties with no regard for illness or complaint. Her pension was spent on the finest teas, grilled salmon, rich puddings, always for herselfa little throne atop her empire of trifles.
I realized long ago that the fateful decision to stay had blighted my path. I shouldnt have agreed to live here, but now, decades drifting by, I swallowed humiliation like bitter medicine.
Marys finishing at university now. Shes met a kind young man, full of freckles and gentle laughter. Theyre marrying soonthe wedding a hummingbird in the futureand moving to his own snug flat. My hopes for her spiral upward, looping with bright anticipation.
But for myself, regret crowds my bones. My life feels ruineda long, strange dream from which I cant seem to awaken.
