PART 1
“Samantha, stop pretending to be asleep! It’s five in the morning and today is your father-in-law’s seventieth birthday. I want the catered roast ready before the guests arrive.”
I opened my eyes with a start. For a few seconds, I thought I was still trapped in the Miller family home, in that freezing basement kitchen where I had spent ten years getting up before sunrise. Then I saw the beige curtains of the small apartment I had rented after the divorce and remembered something Beatrice, my former mother-in-law, seemed determined to forget: modern marriage laws applied to us, and Brian and I had not been husband and wife for a month.
I put the phone to my ear and asked with a calmness that even surprised me:
“Excuse me… who is speaking?”
The silence on the other end was absolute bliss.
“What do you mean, who is speaking?
It’s Beatrice! What utter nonsense are you talking about?”
“Oh, I thought you had the wrong number. I’m not your daughter-in-law anymore.”
Beatrice let out a dry, harsh laugh.
“Don’t start with your ridiculous drama. Almost thirty people are coming today. You are going to make the herb roast, wild rice, braised beef parcels, garden salad, and the walnut cake classic that Charles likes. I want you at the estate by 5:30.”
For ten years I had heard similar orders during Thanksgiving, family milestones, baptisms, and casual Sunday dinners. While everyone else raised a glass to celebrate, I plated meals in silence. If I sat down for five minutes to rest my aching feet, Beatrice would appear right behind my chair.
“A good wife doesn’t rest while her family needs her help,” she used to whisper.
And Brian had never contradicted her a single time in his life.
“My
mom is completely right, Samantha. Don’t make a big deal out of everything,” he would say without looking up from his phone screen.
The worst part was that I had given up my blossoming career for him. Before we got married, I worked as a head culinary consultant and led traditional American heritage cooking workshops. Brian had claimed he felt uncomfortable with a wife who displayed herself in front of strangers every day. He promised his upscale restaurant would be our joint life project. In the end, he claimed all the credit, and I was left with the endless dishwashing, purchasing inventories, managing suppliers, and doing every bit of unseen manual labor.
