Then she would sigh like a tragic actress from an old movie and dab the corners of her dry eyes while Aaron stood there looking like a man who had walked into a trap he had seen being built and still couldn’t avoid.
So most of the time, we endured her.
And I cleaned.
I cleaned the plates she left on the coffee tables. I cleaned the grease she splattered on the stove. I cleaned the wrappers she dropped beside the couch like she thought trash cans were decorative. I cleaned handprints off the fridge, sticky rings off the dining table, and once, no joke, a smear of lipstick off my bathroom hand towel.
Every visit ended with me muttering under my breath and Aaron apologizing for a woman he did not create but clearly felt morally responsible for.
Then came last Saturday.
It had already been a long week. My son had a school project due on Monday. My daughter had decided she hated math and wanted to announce that fact every seven minutes. I had spent the morning deep-cleaning the kitchen because we were having friends over the next day for dinner.
The floors were freshly mopped. The counters were shining. The sink was empty. For one beautiful hour, my kitchen looked like a room from a catalog instead of the command center of a family of four.
At 12:30 p.m., the doorbell rang.
I looked through the window, and there she was.
