Chapter 3 - WHY I CHOSE POTATOES
I did not plan the mashed-potato stunt for weeks.
It happened in a grocery-store parking lot.
I sat in my car with Dorothy’s cash spread across the passenger seat.
Less than forty dollars.
She expected lunch for twenty adults.
A proper lunch, by Dorothy’s standards, would have cost several hundred.
More if she got the salmon she had mentioned the previous week.
My wallet was beside me.
One swipe.
Problem solved.
Again.
Then I remembered Kevin looking away.
That was what changed my mind.
Dorothy’s cruelty was familiar.
My husband’s silence had begun feeling more expensive.
I picked up the cash.
Walked into the store.
Bought potatoes.
A little milk.
Butter.
One packet of gravy mix.
That was it.
I even comparison-shopped.
If Dorothy wanted budget management, she was about to receive extraordinary budget discipline.
When I returned, she was busy placing wine bottles on the table.
“Everything handled?”
“Yes.”
“What did you get?”
“Lunch.”
She smiled.
“See? I knew you’d figure it out.”
I almost told her.
I almost gave her one final chance.
Then she added:
“Sometimes you just have to stop being precious about money.”
I looked at the four bottles of wine she had purchased for herself.
“Right.”
She heard agreement.
I meant goodbye.
I spent the next hour making the smoothest mashed potatoes of my life.
Kevin wandered into the kitchen once.
He looked at the giant stockpot.
“Where’s everything else?”
“There isn’t anything else.”
He laughed.
Then saw my face.
“Angela.”
“Your mother gave me money for food.”
“You know she doesn’t mean that’s the entire budget.”
“I asked.”
“What did she say?”
“That she gave me what I needed.”
Kevin lowered his voice.
“Okay, but you normally cover the rest.”
Normally.
That one word explained our marriage better than any counselor eventually would.
“Not today.”
His expression tightened.
“You’re going to embarrass her.”
I looked at him.
“She told your wife she was useless.”
“She was stressed.”
“She threw money at me.”
“She gets dramatic.”
“She stopped me from using my wallet in front of you.”
Kevin sighed.
“Can we please just get through lunch?”
That was always his goal.
Get through it.
Not fix it.
Not confront it.
Survive the next uncomfortable hour so everybody could continue behaving exactly the same afterward.
I lifted the potato pot.
“No problem.”
May you like
And I got through lunch.
Exactly as instructed.
