2: 2
After a long silence, he said,
"The dog really did die. My mom and I hid it from you because we didn't want you to be hurt."
Over at the table, Carla clattered the bowls and chopsticks around.
I heard her mutter,
"Never seen anyone treat a dog like it's a treasure. Special food, air conditioning. What a waste."
My nails dug into my palms without my noticing.
Boris lost his father in his early teens, raised by his mother alone.
Before we got together, everyone around me warned me.
They said a boy raised by a widowed mother tended to turn into a mama's boy.
But after I'd known Boris a while, I found him careful and considerate.
He had qualities a lot of men his age didn't.
He'd said,
"I grew up watching how hard it was for my mom. I know what women go through."
Later, we got together.
Before long we were talking about marriage, and his mother came from back home in the Midwest, saying she'd help us prepare for the wedding.
The moment his mother arrived, Boris seemed like a different person.
He took her side in everything, treated her word as law.
The old attentiveness was gone, and now he wanted me to give in to his mother at every turn.
We had more than a few little fights over it.
When Carla moved in, we gave her five thousand a month for expenses.
But dinner every night was plain vegetables.
And not even fresh ones.
One time, looking at what sat in the kitchen like scraps someone had picked up off the ground, I couldn't hold it in:
"Carla, you shouldn't eat food that isn't fresh. It's bad for you."
Her face fell, and she said I didn't know a good thing when I saw it.
"Aren't I making all these vegetables because I worry the two of you eat greasy food outside all day and it's bad for your health?"
"I work hard buying groceries and cooking every day, don't get so much as a thank-you, and get looked down on for it."
Beside me, Boris was pleading with his eyes for me to stop.
So I said nothing more.
Until one day, I got off work earlier than usual.
I opened the door to find Boris sitting at the table.
In front of him was a spread of fresh meat and fruit.
And it hit me: his mother had been using my late nights and overtime.
Cooking special meals for her son.
That day, I lost my temper with Boris.
He coaxed and coaxed, poured out every nice thing he could say.
I was still angry, and with red-rimmed eyes he pulled me aside:
"Teresa, my mom raised me all by herself. She's terrified I won't get enough to eat or stay warm enough."
"These dishes she makes, they're just for me. She eats the same things you do."
"She just wants to save money for when we're married. Don't blame her. If you have to blame someone, blame me. Punish me however you want."
Looking at his eyes, so red they seemed about to bleed, I softened after all.
From that day on, I finally got a normal dinner.
But soon the weather turned hot.
Carla saw me running the AC and couldn't stand it, wanted me to turn it off and use the fan.
"It's not even that hot. Running the AC every day, think how expensive the electric bill gets."
She shot me a look.
"Really, you don't know the price of things until you're the one keeping house."
I was so angry I stood up, and Boris grabbed hold of me again.
He leaned in to my ear and murmured,
"That's just how my mom is. She only uses the fan herself, every day."
"Let's just agree with her for now. At night we close the door and turn the AC on, that's all."
Thinking of the three years we'd been together, I swallowed it down again.
But Carla never could stand the sight of me.
One way or another, she'd say I only cared about work and not about home.
"What kind of wife acts like this? Back in my day, a woman like that would've been kicked out by her husband long ago."
She said it enough times that I couldn't take it anymore.
I pushed back once, said I earned more than Boris, so of course I was busy with work.
Carla acted like she'd heard a joke.
"You earn more than our Boris? What a joke."
Beside us, Boris, who'd always smoothed things over between us,
this time said nothing at all, his face dark.
That night, he set his jaw.
"My mom has always been proud of me. What did you mean, telling her in front of her that you earn more than me?"
I got angry too.
I argued with him, said how his mother had been belittling me the whole time.
"It's a fact that I earn more than you. Even the wedding house is one I bought. Why should your mother keep putting me down?"
Boris's face went red with anger.
That night, we slept back to back.
The next morning I got up to leave for my business trip, and I thought of Buddy.
Still holding in my anger, I told Boris what needed doing.
That no matter what, he had to take good care of Buddy.
That he absolutely could not let his mother skip the AC for Buddy just to save a little on electricity.
He gave a grunt of "Mm" through his nose.
……
I looked up at Boris.
The fire inside me felt like it would burn its way out.
"Afraid I'd be hurt? You knew Buddy was like family to me, and you let him die in the heat."
"Not only did you not turn the AC on for him, you shut him out on the balcony. Did you do it on purpose? Did you mean to kill him?"
Boris probably hadn't expected me to know the truth about how Buddy died.
He flinched hard.
