“Anna, I’ll plan the menu, and you can do the cooking,” Linda said, holding out three pages covered in neat handwriting. “I would do it myself, but my hands hurt so badly. This arthritis has worn me out.”
Anna accepted the papers. Appetizers. Main courses. Salads. Three different desserts. For the anniversary celebration, Linda had invited eight people to the apartment she shared with Michael and Anna—without asking either of them.
“Linda, wouldn’t it be easier to have the food catered?” Anna asked, lifting her eyes from the list.
“Catered?” Linda threw up her hands, hands that showed not the slightest sign of arthritis. “And what would my friends think? That we don’t know how to host properly? Absolutely not, Anna. This is your chance to show what you can do.”
Anna folded the list once. Then again. And once more, until it became a small square of paper. She placed it carefully on the table.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll show you.”
Seven months earlier, right after the wedding at city hall, Michael had told her they would stay with his mother for a little while. That “little while” had turned into forever. Linda, whose husband had died seven years before, lived alone in a three-bedroom apartment and suffered terribly. Not from loneliness. From having to cook and clean.
On the second day after the wedding, Linda developed a migraine.
“Anna, sweetheart, my head is splitting. I can’t even get out of bed. Be a dear and make something yourself, all right?”
Anna cooked. Then she cleaned. Then she did the laundry. By evening, Linda had recovered enough to go to the salon for a blowout. She returned refreshed, her hair glossy and smelling of expensive shampoo.
After that, the migraines came back every time there was cooking to be done. Dizzy spells appeared right before cleaning. Arthritis struck whenever dishes needed washing and vanished the moment Linda flipped through magazines or went shopping.
Michael either didn’t notice or chose not to.
“So what?” he would say. “Mom can’t do it. Her health is bad. You’re young. You’ll manage.”
And Anna managed. She got up at five in the morning, prepared breakfast for three, went to teach her first graders, came home around six, and spent the rest of the evening washing, scrubbing, and cooking for the next day. Michael came in, ate dinner, and stretched out in front of the television. Sometimes he asked why she was “always in a bad mood.”
She began to lose weight. Dark circles settled beneath her eyes. Her hands turned rough and dry, her nails started to peel. In the mirror, Anna no longer recognized herself. A tired, older, hollow woman looked back at her.
Then, three weeks ago, Linda announced the anniversary party.
On the morning of the celebration, Anna woke at five as usual, but she did not go to the kitchen. Instead, she put on jeans and a pale blouse, then did her makeup. From the closet she took a small box with an envelope inside: a full-day spa certificate. She had spent her last savings on it.