That evening, I complained to Marcus.
He was on the couch with his laptop, watching a basketball game with the sound off.
“Your mother measured my spice rack with a ruler today.”
He didn’t look up.
“Mom’s old-fashioned,” he said. “Just ignore her.”
“She asked me why I don’t iron your underwear.”
He laughed. “I mean, it’d be kind of nice.”
“Marcus.”
“I’m kidding! I’m kidding.” He finally looked up and grinned at me. “Babe, she’s just like that. She doesn’t mean anything by it. Let it roll off your back.”
So I tried.
In our first year of marriage, Marcus cooked breakfast every Saturday. Pancakes shaped like hearts. He washed the dishes after dinner while I dried. He sang badly while he did it. Old Motown songs, always off-key.
In our second year, the pancakes stopped. Then the singing.
By our third anniversary, he treated the dishwasher like a piece of unfamiliar military equipment.
“Marcus, could you handle dinner tonight?”
“I’m tired.”
“And the laundry? There are three loads in the basket.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“I worked all day too.”
“Sarah, please. Just order something.”
“And your mother will complain.”
He shrugged.
“Then don’t tell her.”
I didn’t notice it happening. That’s the thing. It wasn’t one big moment. It was a hundred tiny ones, like water dripping on a rock.
His mother would come over and say something about the dishes. Marcus wouldn’t say anything back. The next week, he’d leave his own dishes in the sink a little longer.
His mother would comment on the laundry. Marcus wouldn’t defend me. The next week, he’d drop his gym clothes on the bedroom floor instead of in the basket.
Little by little, without either of us saying it out loud, the house became mine. My job. My responsibility. My failure, every time Linda walked in and found something wrong.
And Marcus became the guest.
At first, I really believed Linda was the perfect housewife.
She certainly seemed like one. She was a respected member of the Willowbrook Women’s Society, a very exclusive, very old charity club in our town. They held fancy luncheons and raised money for the children’s hospital.
And Linda ran their homemaking workshops.
Paid workshops. Seventy-five dollars a person. “The Art of the Traditional Home.” She taught women how to cook, how to clean, how to fold fitted sheets, how to set a formal table. She posted photos of her cooking on the club’s social media page every week.
“Another cooking class?” I asked her once, when she mentioned it at Sunday dinner.
“Women appreciate my expertise,” she said, cutting her chicken into tiny squares.
“Did you make that lasagna yourself? The one you posted last week?”
“Of course! Look at the photograph.”
I’d looked at it. It was beautiful. Golden cheese bubbling over the edges. A sprig of fresh basil on top. It looked like something from a magazine.
So for three years, I tried to be like her.
I bought organizers. Drawer dividers. Labeled bins for the pantry. I learned complicated recipes from cookbooks she recommended. I got up at 5:30 to clean before work and stayed up until midnight scrubbing the grout in the shower.
“Linda, I made that casserole you recommended,” I told her one Sunday, proudly carrying it to the table.
She looked at it.
“Did you use fresh herbs?”
“Yes.”
“And homemade stock?”
“No, but I used the good boxed kind, the organic—”
“Then it’s not the same recipe, Sarah.”
She didn’t eat any of it.
Nothing was ever good enough.
Even Marcus noticed eventually.
“Why do you keep trying so hard?” he asked me one night. I was on my knees on the kitchen floor at eleven o’clock, scrubbing a stain off the tile, because Linda was coming for brunch in the morning.
“Because she’s never satisfied,” I said.
“Then stop trying.”
I sat back on my heels and looked at him. He was leaning against the counter, eating ice cream straight out of the carton.
“Easy for you to say,” I said.
He shrugged and went to bed.
I finished the floor.
