“What’s wrong, Mom?”
“I think it’s time for you to find your own place. It’s been over a year. You said it would only be a few months.”
Dan frowned. “Mom, we’ve talked about this. It’s hard out there.”
“But I—”
I stopped. I didn’t know how to say it without sounding selfish, without sounding like the bitter mother-in-law everyone talks about.
“It’s just that this is my house, Dan,” I said softly. “And I feel like I don’t have any space left.”
“You don’t have space?” His voice rose. “Mom, this house is huge. You have your room. What more do you want?”
“My room is the storage closet, Dan.”
“But it’s a room,” he said sharply. “And besides, we help with the expenses. I pay the water, the electricity, the gas. Without us, how would you pay for all that?”
I fell silent. He was right. Since they’d arrived, I no longer paid the utilities. Dan did. And with my pension, I barely had enough for my own personal expenses.
“Forget it,” I said. “It’s nothing.”
“Mom, don’t be like that. I understand it’s complicated to live together sometimes, but we’re family, and family supports each other.”
Yes. Family supports each other. But who was supporting me?
The weeks kept passing and I kept getting smaller, more invisible. I no longer cooked what I wanted. I cooked what Chloe asked for. I no longer watched my shows on television. I watched what they put on. I no longer invited my friends over because Chloe always had people at the house and there was never space for mine.
Sharon, my neighbor, came to visit me from time to time. She was my age, a widow too, who lived alone in the house next door. We had been friends for years. One day, she came over for coffee. She sat with me in the kitchen and looked around.
“You changed the kitchen?” she asked.
“Chloe changed it.”
“Ah.” Sharon took a sip of coffee. “And what do you think?”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. More modern.”
Sharon looked at me with those eyes that knew me too well.
“Eleanor, are you okay?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I don’t know. You seem different. Quieter. Sadder.”
“I’m just tired, that’s all.”
“Tired of what? You don’t work like you used to.”
It was true. Since Dan and Chloe arrived, I no longer did laundry for others. I no longer cooked for events. They had told me it wasn’t necessary anymore—that they supported me now, that I could finally rest.
But it wasn’t rest I felt. It was uselessness.
“Sharon, have you ever felt like you don’t matter anymore?” I asked suddenly.
She put her cup down on the table.
“All the time,” she said. “Ever since I was widowed. Ever since my kids left. Sometimes I feel like I’m just here taking up space, waiting for something to happen—or for nothing to happen.”
I nodded. I knew exactly what she meant.
“But Eleanor,” Sharon continued, “it’s one thing to feel lonely when you’re alone. It’s another thing entirely to feel lonely when there are people around you. That’s worse, because it means you’re surrounded by people who don’t see you.”
Her words stabbed me in the chest.
I was surrounded by people who didn’t see me. My son lived in my house, but he didn’t see me. My daughter-in-law slept under my roof, but she didn’t see me. I was there, cooking, cleaning, existing—but nobody saw me.
“So what do I do?” I asked her.
She sighed. “I don’t know, my friend. I wish I did.”
That night, Chloe announced she was going to host a big dinner for her birthday.
“I’m going to invite my whole family,” she said excitedly. “My parents, my siblings, my cousins, and my friends from work, too. It’s going to be an incredible party.”
“How many people?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer would be too many.
“Like twenty, maybe twenty-five?”
Twenty-five people. In my house.
“And who is going to cook?” I asked, even though we both knew.
“Oh, Eleanor, you cook deliciously. Would you do me the favor? I know it’s a lot of work, but nobody makes green chili enchiladas like you.”
She smiled at me, that sweet smile she used when she wanted something.
“Please. It’s my birthday.”
I agreed. Of course I agreed—because that’s what I did. I said “yes.” With pleasure. I made everyone happy, even if I was left exhausted.
Chloe gave me a list—a long list of everything she wanted for her birthday: green chili enchiladas, Spanish rice, charro beans, fresh guacamole, pico de gallo, three different types of salsa, homemade tortillas, and a tres leches cake that, according to her, I made better than any bakery.
“Do you have money for all this?” I asked.
“Oh, Eleanor, you know Dan and I are saving,” she said. “Could you pay for the food? We’ll pay you back later.”
We’ll pay you back later. Those four words that never came true.
I took money out of my pension—two hundred dollars. It was almost all I had left for the month, but it was my daughter-in-law’s birthday, and I wanted it to be special. I still had that foolish hope that if I was kind, if I gave more, if I tried harder, she would start to see me, to respect me, to like me a little.
I went to the market alone. I bought everything on the list: the reddest tomatoes, the freshest chilies, the most tender chicken, the perfect avocados. I carried the bags back home. My arms hurt, my back hurt, but it didn’t matter.
I came home and started preparing everything. It was three in the afternoon the day before the party. Chloe was in the living room watching television with freshly painted nails.
“Do you need help?” she asked without looking away from the screen.
“No, don’t worry. I can manage.”
“Great. I just got my nails done and I don’t want to ruin them.”
I spent the whole afternoon cooking. All night, too.
Chloe went to bed at eleven. Dan didn’t even come home for dinner. He texted that he was working late.
I stayed there, chopping onions, boiling chicken, grinding chilies. My eyes burned. My hands smelled like garlic and cilantro. My feet ached from standing so long.
At two in the morning, I finished the enchiladas. I put them in the refrigerator. I cleaned the kitchen. Then I started on the cake.
Tres leches cake is complicated. You have to bake the sponge cake, prepare the milk mixture, let it soak well, make the meringue. It’s a long process, but I had done it a thousand times—for Dan’s birthdays when he was little, for family parties, for every special occasion.
I put the sponge cake in the oven and sat at the kitchen table to wait. The clock said three in the morning. The house was silent. The only sounds were the hum of the refrigerator and the slow tick-tock of the wall clock—the one I bought at the market when I moved into this house, the one that had watched Dan grow up, that had marked every moment of my life here.