Chapter 3 - The Conversation
One week before Christmas, Laura visited while Margaret organized groceries in the pantry.
She sat in the living room speaking on her phone, unaware that her voice carried into the kitchen.
“Mom handled all eight last year,” she said.
Margaret stopped pouring coffee.
Laura laughed.
“We’ll drop them off on the twenty-third, check into the beach hotel, and come back Christmas Day for dinner and presents.”
A pause.
“No, we don’t need to ask. She’ll complain for five minutes, then do it.”
Margaret held the mug motionless.
The words did not shock her.
The certainty did.
Laura was not discussing a favor.
She was arranging the use of Margaret’s home, time, money, and body as though all four belonged to the family.
Michael apparently agreed to the plan. Both couples had booked rooms at the same resort.
Margaret would watch eight children for two nights.
Then cook Christmas dinner for fourteen people.
Nobody had asked whether she felt well.
Nobody knew her arthritis had worsened.
Nobody knew she had fallen asleep at the kitchen table twice that month because she was exhausted.
When Laura left, Margaret sat on the edge of her bed.
She asked herself a question she had avoided for years.
What would happen if she simply did not participate?
The answer frightened her.
Not because the children would be unsafe.
Their parents were fully capable of caring for them.
Margaret was afraid her family would be angry.
At sixty-seven, she finally recognized how strange that fear was.
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They had built plans around her labor.
Why should she feel guilty for refusing work she had never accepted?
