I stared at him.
“Patrick,” I said. “We barely fit in this apartment ourselves. You’re giving away our bedroom?”
Linda rolled her eyes from the couch. I saw her do it.
“Honestly,” she said. “Can’t you be a little more welcoming, Clarissa?”
I turned to her.
“Linda,” I said, as calmly as I could, “nobody asked me whether I wanted guests.”
Patrick stepped closer to me. He lowered his voice. But not enough. Everybody could hear him.
“Can you stop embarrassing me?” he said.
“You’re giving away our bedroom,” I said again. “Without even asking me.”
“They’re only here for the weekend.”
“And where am I supposed to sleep?”
He threw the blanket onto the couch. Hard. It landed right next to Linda.
“If you don’t like it,” Patrick said, loud enough for the whole apartment to hear, “you can find somewhere else to stay!”
Nobody spoke.
Even the toy fire truck stopped making noise.
Kylie looked down at the diaper bag in her lap. Kevin kept staring at the baseball game, but I could tell he wasn’t watching it. Robert shifted his pillow from one hand to the other.
Linda just sat there on my couch with my blue mug in her hand, waiting for me to respond. She had a little look on her face. Not quite a smile. But close.
I wanted to shout.
I wanted to grab that blanket and throw it right back at him. I wanted to say all the things I’d been not saying for six years.
But I looked around the room. At all those faces watching me. Waiting.
And I knew exactly what would happen if I shouted. They’d all go home and tell everybody that Clarissa threw a fit. That Clarissa was rude. That Clarissa made everybody uncomfortable. That poor Patrick.
I wasn’t going to give them another reason to blame me.
So I picked up the grocery bags.
“Well,” I said. “Somebody’s going to need a hotel.”
Patrick laughed.
A short, easy laugh. He looked at his mother and rolled his eyes. Like See what I have to deal with?
He thought I was joking.
I went into the kitchen and started putting the groceries away. My hands were shaking. I put the milk in the refrigerator. I put the eggs next to it. I put the bread on the counter.
Linda followed me into the kitchen.
The kitchen is so narrow that two people can barely stand in it at the same time. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, blocking it.
“I don’t understand your attitude,” she said.
“My attitude?” I said.
“You invited us, Clarissa,” she said. “Now you’re acting like we’re intruding. Like we’re some kind of burden.”
I turned around and looked at her.
“Who told you,” I said slowly, “that I invited everyone?”
Linda frowned.
“Patrick did,” she said. “He said you wanted us all together. He said you’d been asking for a family weekend for months.”
I stood there with a carton of eggs in my hand.
Then I put it down on the counter.
“Patrick!” I called. “Can you come in here, please?”
He came to the kitchen doorway. Linda moved aside to let him in, a little.
“What?” he said.
“Did you tell your mother this was my idea?” I said.
He shrugged. He leaned against the doorframe.
“I said you were looking forward to seeing everyone,” he said.
“That’s not what you told us,” Linda said.
She said it right away. Like she was correcting a little mistake. Like she didn’t even realize what she was saying.
“You said she’d planned everything,” Linda said. “You said she was so excited. You said she’d already planned the meals.”
From the living room, Kevin looked over the back of the armchair.
“Yeah,” he said. “You said Clarissa wanted a family weekend. You said it was her idea.”
Patrick’s head snapped around toward his brother.
“Thanks, Kevin,” he said.
Kevin looked confused.
“What? That’s what you told me, bro,” he said. “On the phone. Tuesday.”
Linda folded her arms.
“Well,” she said. “We’re already here. So I don’t see what difference it makes now.”
That was when I realized something.
Patrick hadn’t just ignored my objections. He hadn’t just invited them without asking me.
He’d told them it was my idea.
He’d made me responsible for promises I’d never made. Promises about meals, and plans, and a family weekend I’d never wanted. And then he’d stood back and let them all be mad at me when I didn’t keep them.
I picked up my purse from the counter.
“Where are you going?” Patrick asked.
“Out for lunch,” I said.
“It’s ten-thirty in the morning.”
“Then out for an early lunch.”
“What about everyone else?” he said. “What about breakfast?”
I looked at him in the kitchen doorway.
“You invited them,” I said. “I’m sure you can manage some sandwiches. There’s bread right there. I just bought it.”
I squeezed past him. Past Linda. Past the suitcases in the hallway.
I left before another argument could start.
I was halfway down the stairs when I heard footsteps behind me.
“Clarissa! Wait!”
It was Kylie.
She came down the stairs fast, in her sneakers, pulling on her jacket.
“Can I come with you?” she said. She was a little out of breath. “Please? I just… I need five minutes away from everybody.”
I looked at her.
Kylie and I had never been close. She was quiet, mostly. She let Kevin do the talking. At family dinners, she was always the one in the kitchen with the kids, or the one cleaning up afterward. We’d had maybe three real conversations in six years.
But she looked like she meant it.
I nodded.
We walked two blocks to a little café on the corner. It’s called Bean There. I go there sometimes on Sunday mornings by myself, when Patrick sleeps in.
Kylie ordered a coffee. I ordered a turkey sandwich and an iced tea. We sat at a little table by the window.
Kylie stirred her coffee for a long time without drinking it.
“I told Kevin this apartment was too small,” she said finally.
“At least somebody can count,” I said.
She smiled. A small, quick smile. Then it went away.
“Patrick made it sound like you’d arranged everything,” she said. “When he called Kevin. He said you’d planned the whole weekend. Meals. Activities. Everything. He said you’d be hurt if we stayed anywhere else.”
“Apparently,” I said, “I’m quite the hostess.”
Kylie kept stirring her coffee.
She looked like she was deciding whether to say something.
“He’s also been saying,” she said slowly, “that you don’t enjoy spending time with us.”
I stopped eating. I put my sandwich down.
“Since when?” I said.
“A few months ago,” Kylie said. “He’s been saying it for a while. At family stuff. When you weren’t there. He said you kept finding reasons to avoid family plans. He said you didn’t really like us very much.”
I sat there and thought about it.
I remembered missing Linda’s birthday dinner in April. I’d had the flu. A hundred and two fever. I’d been throwing up for two days.
I remembered skipping a Sunday lunch at Linda’s house in July, because one of the dentists at work had a family emergency, and somebody had to cover the Saturday and Sunday emergency appointments.
And I remembered something else.
Both times, Patrick had told me to stay home.
The night of Linda’s birthday, I’d been sitting on the couch in my bathrobe, feeling terrible, saying, Maybe I should just take some medicine and come for an hour.And Patrick had put his hand on my forehead and said, No, stay home. Rest. I’ll tell Mom you’re sick. She’ll understand.
And in July, when I said I could probably switch the Sunday shift with somebody, he’d said, Don’t worry about it. Take the shift. It’s just lunch.
“He told me to stay home that night,” I said slowly. “Linda’s birthday. He told me to stay home. I wanted to go. I had the flu.”
Kylie frowned.
“He told Linda you didn’t feel like coming,” she said.
I sat there and looked out the window at the people walking by on the sidewalk.
It was strange. It was like looking at a picture you’ve seen a thousand times, and suddenly noticing something in the corner that you never saw before. Something that changes the whole picture.
“So this wasn’t just a change of scenery for you guys?” I asked finally. “A family weekend?”
“Not for us,” Kylie said. “Kevin and I can’t use our bathroom. A pipe burst under the floor last week. The plumbers won’t finish until Monday. We needed somewhere to stay.”
She looked down at her coffee.
“And Linda and Robert decided to make a weekend of it,” she said. “Since everybody would be together anyway.”
She looked uncomfortable.
“Kevin wanted to save money on a hotel,” she said. “And honestly? I agreed with him. Hotels are expensive with two kids. So I said yes when Patrick offered.” She paused. “I should’ve checked with you first. Myself. I should’ve called you. I’m sorry, Clarissa.”
It wasn’t a big apology. It wasn’t a speech.
But at least she wasn’t pretending she’d done nothing wrong. That was more than I’d gotten from anyone else that day.
“Thank you,” I said.
I picked my sandwich back up. Then I put it back down.
“Kylie,” I said. “Did Patrick mention any other plans? For this weekend? Things I supposedly planned?”
She thought about it.
“He said you’d take the kids out tomorrow,” she said. “Sunday. To the children’s museum, maybe. Or the zoo. He said you were really excited about it. So Kevin and I could have a break.”
I stared at her.
Sunday was my only day off. My one day. The one day a week I didn’t have to answer a phone or argue with an insurance company or explain to a patient why their crown wasn’t covered.
And my husband had given it away. To his brother. Without asking me.
When we got back to the apartment an hour later, Patrick was playing cards with Kevin at the coffee table.
Gin rummy. There were pretzels everywhere. And sandwich crumbs. And three empty beer cans. The kids were watching cartoons. Linda was on the couch on her phone. Robert was sitting in the kitchen at the little table, reading the newspaper.
Nobody had cleaned anything up.
Linda glanced up at me when I came in.
