“That all has to be paid for. We watch every single dollar. Meanwhile, the two of you live alone, in your own place, with no loans hanging over your heads. Are you really going to begrudge your own niece a piece of meat?”
There it was—Sarah’s favorite hymn. “We watch every dollar.” Never mind that Ethan drove a nearly new SUV, while Sarah changed estheticians more often than I replaced the filter in the range hood.
“Home-cooked food carries a completely different energy,” Sarah announced in that lecturing voice of hers, smoothing the front of her cardigan. “Store-bought frozen meals are dead food. My body rejects them. You’re a woman, Olivia. You should understand how important it is to eat something made with care.”
“Your body rejects them because you don’t like chewing. You swallow first and look later,” I replied evenly. “And the only ‘energy’ my meatballs are going to produce is if the fridge compressor breaks down. The key. On the table.”
Sarah went pale with outrage.
“You have no soul,” she hissed. “Just calculations. You’re not a woman, you’re a calculator in a skirt.”
She clutched her designer purse as if it were a life preserver tossed to her in the ocean of my spiritual emptiness.
Right then, a key turned in the front door. A second later Paul came bursting into the hallway. He was in a cheerful mood, smelling of expensive cologne and fresh gasoline. When he noticed the two of us in the kitchen, he faltered for half a second, then quickly pasted on the expression of a generous host.
“Oh, wow, ladies! Why so serious?” he said. “Sarah, why are your hands empty? Olivia, why aren’t you offering our guest anything?”
“Your guest has already served herself,” I said, leaning back against the counter with my arms folded. “Paul, when exactly did you open a free takeout kitchen in our apartment?”
Paul blew out a loud breath, shrugged off his jacket, and tossed it onto the entryway bench.
“Olivia, don’t start,” he muttered, walking into the kitchen. He tried to put an arm around my shoulders, but I stepped away. “She’s family. Yeah, I gave Sarah a key. So she takes a couple of containers now and then. What’s the big deal? You’re at the stove all weekend anyway. You like doing it.”
“I like doing it?” I lifted one eyebrow. “So peeling three pounds of vegetables, deboning meat, grinding it, and standing by a blazing oven for four hours is my idea of fun?”
“A woman is the keeper of the home, Olivia,” my husband declared solemnly, lowering himself into a chair and planting his elbows on the table. “It’s in your nature to feed the people close to you. Genetics! A woman fulfills her true purpose through caring for her tribe. You should be grateful I’m giving you that opportunity instead of making a scene.”
“My genetics are telling me to conserve energy for winter,” I said in the same calm voice. “And if we’re putting a price on the fulfillment of my ‘true purpose,’ then a private chef runs about three thousand dollars for an hour of work. Plus groceries. Will you be paying cash, or should I send you a payment request?”
“You turn everything into money!” Paul barked. “You’re turning our marriage into a business transaction!”
He puffed up and flushed red, like an overinflated balloon at a children’s party, ready to burst from its own sense of importance.
I walked over to the cabinet, took out the notebook I used for work, and picked up a pen.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s take the emotion out of it. Since we’re talking about ‘a couple of containers,’ Sarah, this wasn’t your first visit, was it?”
Silence settled over the kitchen. Sarah exchanged a quick glance with her brother.
“Well… I stopped by Wednesday,” my sister-in-law admitted reluctantly, looking away.
“Good to know.” I opened the notebook. “On Wednesday, a large container of beef Bourguignon disappeared, along with two containers of stuffed peppers.”