Comments exploded.
“Strong start, Patricia.”
She forced a laugh.
Then a carton of milk tipped over and soaked her socks.
“Fridge: 2. Patricia: 0.”
Her smile weakened.
Someone asked us to wipe the tops of our refrigerators.
My cloth came away nearly clean.
Patricia dragged her fingers across hers and stared at the gray dust covering them.
The comments became brutal.
Next came the cabinets.
Plastic containers fell onto her counter.
Then the range hood.
She scrubbed twice, but her cloth still came away brown with grease.
I should have felt victorious.
Instead, I noticed Patricia’s hand shaking.
Then she sat down on the kitchen floor.
“I can’t do this.”
The comments slowed.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Her face crumpled.
“I mean I can’t do any of it, Claire.”
She looked around her kitchen.
“You make everything look easy. Your house. Your marriage. Your job. Dinner. Laundry. Everything.”
I said nothing.
“Every time I came to your house, I looked for something wrong because if I could find something you were failing at, I didn’t have to think about what I was failing at here.”
The words hit harder than any insult she had ever given me.
“So all those comments about my cleaning…”
“Were about me.”
“And when you found me sick in bed?”
Her eyes filled.
“I finally saw something I could use against you.”
There it was.
The truth.
Eight years of criticism had never really been about my roast, my baseboards, my laundry, or the kind of salt I used.
Patricia had been measuring me because she hated the way she measured herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
