Daniel stopped thanking me.
He started assuming.
He’d come home at seven. Walk into the kitchen. Look at the stove.
“What’s for dinner, Mom?”
Not thank you. Not you didn’t have to.
What’s for dinner.
I told myself it was fine.
I told myself this is what family does.
I told myself I was earning my keep.
Earning my keep.
I’d never thought about it that way until I heard myself think it.
I was seventy years old. A widow. Living in a casita by a pool. Earning my keep.
One afternoon in July, I overheard something.
I was walking down the hall. Carrying a basket of folded towels. To put in the linen closet outside their bedroom.
Their bedroom door was partly open.
I heard Renee.
“She lives here for free, Daniel.”
I stopped walking.
“We’re covering everything,” Renee said. “The mortgage. The utilities. Groceries. Her phone. The water bill went up forty dollars a month since she moved in.”
