But a week later, the balance shifted. Linda had grown entirely comfortable in the apartment, and with that comfort came a decision of her own: things needed to be put in order. Emily was coming back from the kitchen with a cup of coffee when she stopped short. Every book on the living room shelves had been moved.
“Linda, what is this?” she asked, standing in the middle of the room with the mug still in her hand.
“What do you mean, what?” Her mother-in-law was wiping dust from one of the shelves. “I’m straightening up. This place was a mess. The books were all over the place. I arranged them by size. Now they look decent.”
“But they were convenient for me the way they were.”
“Convenient!” Linda gave a sharp little snort. “Young people today don’t even understand what order means. I looked in the kitchen, too. Pots shoved wherever, grains poured into every kind of jar imaginable… everything needs to be redone.”
Emily pressed her lips together and said nothing. She didn’t want a fight, and making a scene over books seemed ridiculous. She simply turned around, went back to her room, and shut the door behind her.
As the days passed, Linda began inserting herself into everything more and more. She criticized the way Emily made soup, complained that the apartment wasn’t clean enough, said laundry should be done more often, and insisted the dishes ought to be washed differently. Whenever Emily tried to talk to Michael about it, he brushed her concerns aside. His answer was always the same: his mother was only trying to help, and Emily shouldn’t take it so personally.
One Wednesday morning, Emily was sitting at her computer, polishing the design for a landing page for an important client. The deadline was in two days, and there was still plenty left to finish. She was focused on adjusting the layout on the screen when the door suddenly flew open and Linda marched in.
“Emily, don’t you have anything useful to do?” she demanded from the doorway, her hands planted on her hips. “Go to the store. I need a few things for lunch. We’re out of potatoes, and we need onions and carrots.”
Emily turned in her chair.
“Linda, I’m working. I have a client call in half an hour.”
“Working!” Her mother-in-law waved a hand with open contempt. “You sit on the internet and move pictures around. That isn’t work. When I was young, I worked at a factory. That was real work.”
“This is my profession, and I earn money doing it. I can’t go shopping right now.”
“You can’t?” Linda’s voice rose. “Then who is supposed to go? Me? Am I supposed to run up and down the stairs at my age? My back hurts!”
Emily inhaled slowly, swallowing the response that wanted to come out.
“Linda, let’s discuss it later. I’ll be free around two, and I’ll go then.”
Her mother-in-law muttered something under her breath, clearly dissatisfied, then stormed out and slammed the door loudly behind her.
The same thing happened the next day. Emily was reviewing a technical brief from a new client when Linda barged in again.
“Emily, come help me clean right now! I can’t do it all by myself. This apartment is enormous!”
“I’m in the middle of my workday,” Emily said, not even turning around. Her eyes stayed on the monitor.
“There, you see? That’s exactly what I mean. Idleness! You sit at home and contribute nothing. Get up and help me.”
“I. Am. Working,” Emily forced out through clenched teeth.
“Work!” Linda scoffed. “Real women run a household. They don’t stare at a machine all day.”
This time Emily couldn’t hold herself back.
“Linda, enough. You cannot keep bursting into my room without knocking. This is my room, and it is also my workplace. I earn money here—money, by the way, that helps make it possible for you to live in this apartment.”
Linda took offense immediately and left, stomping so hard the floor seemed to shake. That evening, when Michael came home, she complained to her son that his wife had insulted her. Michael came to speak with Emily, but the conversation quickly went nowhere.
“Emily, why were you so harsh with Mom?” he asked. “She’s an older woman.”
“Michael, she keeps interrupting me while I’m working. I have deadlines, clients, responsibilities.”
“So what? You can’t help her for five minutes?”
“Five minutes? This happens ten times a day.”