[MY MOTHER-IN-LAW TRASHED MY HOUSE EVERY SINGLE VISIT. UNTIL THE DAY I FINALLY OPENED A DRAWER SHE NEVER KNEW EXISTED.]
Thirty-two years old, married eleven of them. Raising two kids who somehow stayed tidier than their own grandmother ever managed to be.
That’s been the actual shape of my life for longer than I care to admit.
I used to joke about it with my sister, back when it still felt funny instead of exhausting. “At least the kids clean up after themselves,” I’d say. “Small mercies.” She’d laugh, but even she stopped finding it funny somewhere around year eight. Once she realized I wasn’t exaggerating for effect anymore.
My sister, Bree, visited once during those years and witnessed a full Deloris episode firsthand. Muddy footprints and all. She pulled me aside afterward, genuinely alarmed. “Does this happen every single time?” she asked. “Every single time,” I confirmed. “How do you not lose your mind?” she asked. I didn’t have a good answer for her then. I mostly just shrugged and kept cleaning, the way I always did.
Bree brought it up again years later. Once I finally told her the whole story about the deed. And the filing cabinet and everything that followed. “I always wondered what finally made you snap,” she said. “I’m glad it was something this concrete. Something you could actually fix.” “Me too,” I told her. “For a long time I thought I’d just have to live with it forever.”
