My husband be@t me for refusing to live with my mother-in-law. Then he calmly went to bed. The next morning, he handed me a luxury makeup kit and said, “My mother’s coming for lunch. Cover that up and smile.”

She wanted to know what was inside. Whether it was really that expensive. Whether I had ever been tempted.

And I told her the truth, which is that I have never looked.

Because the only thing I needed to know about that box was on a receipt folded under the tray.

What was in it does not matter. It could be the best concealer on earth. It could be empty.

The date on the bottom was the whole of it.

And the last thing.

In the November, at the first lunch, she brought her box.

I had asked her to. I do not entirely know why.

And I brought mine.

And we put them on the café table between us, next to the sugar.

Two black square boxes. Gold clasps. Satin ribbons. The same brand, from the same counter, bought by the same woman on the same account.

Nine years apart.

And neither of us had ever taken the cellophane off.

The waitress came over to take our order and looked at them and said, brightly, “Ooh — twins!”
May you likeAnd Cressida said, “Something like that.”

And we ordered soup.