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“It’s just that sometimes they don’t get,” added another, “that when their children get married, they need their own space to create their own identity as a couple.”
They spoke about me in the third person as if I were invisible in my own kitchen. When I tried to join the conversation, Emily interrupted me.
They kicked me out of my own kitchen. The changes accelerated after that.
Emily began to reorganize the entire house without my permission. My family photographs disappeared from the walls, replaced by modern art that she chose. My good china, the set I had inherited from my grandmother, was put away so it doesn’t get damaged with daily use and replaced with plates she liked better.
“Martha,” she said one day while packing my Christmas ornaments in boxes, “These old things are so worn out. We should buy new decorations for the holidays this year.”
“Those ornaments are 40 years old, Emily,” I replied, trying to take the box from her hands. “I bought them when Robert was a little boy.
We put them up together every December. It’s our tradition.”
“Traditions can change, too,” she said firmly, pulling the box out of my reach. “Robert and I want to create our own family traditions.”
When December came, my house looked like a magazine catalog.
Everything was perfect, modern, elegant, but there was no trace of the decorations that for decades had filled our home with memories and love. Robert said nothing. He had become so used to pleasing his wife that he no longer even noticed when pieces of his own history disappeared.
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