Four
I was furious.
Every last shred of my willingness to just grin and bear it evaporated on the spot.
After all, I'd never been a pushover.
Dustin must have sensed I was about to explode, because he finally decided to stop playing mute.
"Mom, Mom, Marion doesn't mean it like that."
"She's just looking out for you. She wants you to be a normal mother-in-law, you know? Stay home, do some housework, enjoy your golden years."
"But that's just our opinion. It's really up to you."
"Oh, by the way, didn't you bring a bunch of gifts from overseas for Marion? Go on, show her what you got!"
I didn't move.
I wasn't about to grovel.
I could swallow my pride for the sake of Dustin's household harmony, but that didn't mean I was going to get on my knees and beg Marion to accept me.
When she saw I wasn't budging, Marion got even angrier than I was.
"I don't want her stupid gifts."
"A real mother-in-law doesn't throw money at her son and daughter-in-law to buy their affection."
"She says she's giving me presents, but has she stopped to think? Her money IS our money."
"If she wasn't hoarding the company and hogging all the wealth, would I need her gifts? I could buy whatever I wanted myself!"
"She's spending MY money to buy ME presents, and I'm supposed to be grateful? Do I look like an idiot?"
Marion's voice climbed higher with every sentence. She was rattling off words like a machine gun, so fast my head started pounding. I could barely keep up, but a few choice phrases still cut through the noise: cheap tramp, divorce, competing for my husband's attention.
Dustin kept trying to soothe her, cooing and coddling, until finally he'd had enough and turned on me instead.
"Why do you always have to stir up trouble?"
"I told you on the way here that Marion was upset. Did you not hear me?"
"Apologize to her. Now."
Five
I'd done nothing wrong. I certainly wasn't going to apologize.
"What exactly did I do wrong?"
"I make the money so you two can live off me. Is that wrong?"
"I buy you gifts. Is that wrong?"
"Or is it that I committed some unforgivable crime by sitting in a car?"
Marion didn't get her apology. She stormed back to the bedroom and slammed the door so hard the walls shook.
Dustin looked like his head was about to split in two.
He glanced at me, then at the bedroom door.
But he didn't go after Marion. Instead, he turned to me with undisguised irritation.
"I should've never brought you home. I knew this would happen."
"What's wrong with you? The older you get, the worse you become. Can you really not stand to see me happy?"
"I know Grandma used to bully you, but just because you got rained on doesn't mean you get to rip the umbrella out of everyone else's hands."
He didn't care that my face had gone dark with rage. Word by word, he pushed me toward the door, his hands firm against my back.
By the time I realized what was happening, I was standing barefoot in the hallway.
The weather had started to warm, but without shoes, the floor was still bitterly cold. My first instinct was to go back inside, but then I thought about boundaries. So instead of punching in the door code, I knocked.
I knocked several times.
The door didn't open.
But Marion's voice carried right through it.
"So this is your wonderful mother?"
"No wonder people say you should never marry into a single-parent family. She's been alone all these years, never remarried. She's obviously twisted in the head. She probably stopped seeing you as her son a long time ago and turned you into a stand-in for your father."
"Remember when we went to pick out my wedding dress? I asked her which one looked best, and she barely said a word. Just 'They all look fine.'"
"At the time, I actually thought she was one of those great mothers-in-law who doesn't meddle. But now I see it clearly. She probably thought none of them looked good enough, so she refused to tell me which one to pick. She was just afraid I'd outshine her!"
