Chapter 4: What My Husband Said After Everyone Left
The last guest left at half past eight.
Ruth was the final one out.
She hugged me at the door for a long moment, didn't say anything, and then pressed her hand against my cheek once before walking to her car.
I watched her taillights disappear down the street.
When I turned back inside, my husband was in the kitchen.
He wasn't cleaning up.
He was just standing at the counter with his arms crossed, staring at the floor.
I started stacking plates.
"You planned that," he said.
"I planned Thanksgiving dinner.
Yes."
"You knew she was bringing people and you didn't say anything."
I set the plates down.
"I knew two days ago, when your cousin told me.
I asked you that same night if you knew.
You said you figured she'd already spoken to me." I looked at him.
"She hadn't."
"You could have called her yourself."
"Why?"
He looked up.
"What do you mean, why?"
"Why was it my job to call her and confirm the guest list for my own dinner party?
Why wasn't it her job to call me before she invited twenty people to my house?"
He rubbed his face.
"She's my mother.
That's just how she is."
"I know that's how she is.
That's the problem."
"She was embarrassed tonight.
In front of the whole family."
"She embarrassed herself," I said.
"I set a table for the people I invited.
That's it.
She's the one who told a room full of people that you should have married someone else."
He was quiet for a moment.
"She didn't mean it like that."
I stopped moving.
"How did she mean it?"
"She was upset.
She says things when she's upset."
"She's been saying things for six years." I kept my voice steady.
"She told your cousin I don't know how to cook.
She told your aunt that I'm cold.
She told your colleague's wife at the Christmas party two years ago that she worries about you because I work too much and you deserve someone more present." I looked at him.
"Were those things she said when she was upset too?"
He didn't answer right away.
"I didn't know about the Christmas party thing," he said finally.
"I know you didn't.
I didn't tell you because I didn't want to make it a bigger thing than it was.
I kept doing that.
Not telling you.
Letting it go.
Making room." I picked up the plates again.
"I'm done making room."
"So what does that mean?"
"It means I set a table for the people I invited.
And next year I'll do the same thing."
He was quiet for a long time.
"She's not going to let this go," he said.
"I know."
"She's going to call me every day this week."
"I know that too."
He looked at me across the kitchen — the leftover dishes, the folded napkins, the half-empty serving bowls.
Everything I had planned and prepared and set out, down to the last detail.
"I should have told you," he said.
"When she mentioned the extra guests.
I should have told you right away instead of assuming."
It was the closest thing to an apology he'd offered all night.
"Yes," I said.
"You should have."
He nodded slowly.
Then he picked up a dish towel and started drying the glasses I'd already washed.
We worked in silence for a while.
It wasn't fixed.
Not even close.
But it was something.
Then his phone lit up on the counter.
He glanced at it.
His expression changed.
"It's her," he said.
I kept washing.
"I know."
He picked up the phone.
Looked at it for another second.
Then he set it face-down on the counter and kept drying glasses.
I didn't say anything.
But I noticed.
What I didn't know — what neither of us knew yet — was that she hadn't just called.
She had also sent a message.
May you like
To every single person who had been at my table that night.
And what that message said was going to change everything.
