In the end, he had to brush his teeth in the kitchen.
The refrigerator became a military operations chart. Rita’s orderly rows of jars and containers occupied the right side. Nina’s clean, carefully labeled little boxes held the left. If anyone so much as brushed against the other woman’s territory by accident, it was treated as an act of open aggression.
The high point was the borscht. Both mothers decided to make it on the very same day. Two pots sat on the stove like rival encampments, each giving off its own scent, its own philosophy, its own declaration of war. That evening Kyle was expected to choose which soup he would eat. He understood perfectly well that either choice would amount to signing a battlefield order. Hell, as it turned out, had only just opened its doors.
The first days of direct combat soon faded, only to be replaced by something far more exhausting: guerrilla warfare. The air in the apartment grew thick and stagnant, like the inside of a sealed tomb where one careless word could bring the ceiling down. The shouting stopped. The arguments disappeared. In their place came a sticky, suffocating silence, packed with disapproving glances, theatrical sighs, and loud, pointed not-speaking. Erin and her mother had moved into the next stage of their strategy: the systematic destruction of Kyle’s nervous system.
The kitchen remained the center of the conflict. Rita, a devoted believer in hearty, greasy, generously portioned food, cooked on a grand scale and for long stretches of time, monopolizing both the stove and the oven. Nina, an advocate of clean eating and restraint, suffered in silence while waiting for her chance to prepare her diet broccoli soup.
One afternoon, just as Nina’s soup was simmering gently over a low flame, Rita entered the kitchen with a saltshaker in her hand.
“Oh, Nina, what a lovely, appetizing green soup you have there,” she cooed. “Have you salted it yet? I’m frying meat patties for Kyle, and I thought perhaps he might find them a little bland.”
“I add salt at the very end, Rita. Thank you.”
“Well, let me just taste a tiny bit, all right?” Without waiting for permission, she dipped a spoon into the broth, made a face, and then shook salt into the pot with firm determination. “There we go! I only wanted to check whether it had enough salt. My hand must have slipped. Old age, Nina, is no blessing.”
She left the kitchen, abandoning Nina to stare down at the ruined contents of the pot. Nina did not say a word. She simply lifted the saucepan and, in total silence, poured the whole thing down the drain.
Revenge was served the following day. Rita was enormously proud of her snow-white starched blouse, the one she saved “for special occasions.” Nina, having launched into a major cleaning spree, “accidentally” picked up that very blouse and washed it together with Kyle’s new blue jeans.
“Rita, please don’t be upset,” she said that evening, her face glowing with angelic innocence as she held up the blouse, now marked with pale blue stains. “I washed it with the colored things. I thought I’d freshen it up. White turns gray so quickly in this city anyway. Now at least it has a noble tint.”
Rita went rigid. Her face turned beet red, and her hands clenched into fists. But she could prove nothing. It had been “help.” It had been “care.”
Still, the main target of all attacks was Kyle. He became the prize both mothers were trying to drag to their own side. He no longer came home from work; he approached an execution chamber. Every evening, as he slid his key into the lock, he froze and listened, trying to determine the enemy formation by sound alone. But without fail, both women were waiting for him at the front door.
“Kyle, sweetheart, you’re home!” Rita would swoop down on him, attempting to snatch his bag from his hand. “Are you tired, darling? I made mashed potatoes with meat patties for you. They’re still hot!”
“Kyle, don’t rush,” Nina would cut in at once, holding out his slippers. “First wash your hands and change your clothes. Street dust should not be carried through the apartment. And for dinner, something light is much better. I made you a vegetable salad.”
They were practically tearing him into pieces. When he sat down at the table, two plates appeared in front of him. If he took a bite of mashed potatoes, Rita looked at Nina with triumphant satisfaction. If he pushed his fork through the salad, Nina gave her rival a glance that radiated intellectual superiority.
Kyle’s left eye began to twitch. Any sudden noise made him flinch. He spoke less and less, limiting himself to one-word answers whenever possible. The apartment was no longer a fortress. It had become a torture chamber.
Erin kept herself apart from all of it. She was Switzerland: neutral, polite, and impenetrable. In the evenings she sat with a book in her hands while invisible storms raged around her. One night, after Kyle had been driven nearly insane by a debate over the proper way to iron clothes and had fled into the bedroom, Nina quietly passed her daughter’s armchair and whispered:
“Just a couple more days, Erin. The buyer is almost ready.”
Without lifting her eyes from the page, Erin gave the faintest nod. Their plan was working flawlessly.