“I Didn’t Invite You,” My Daughter-in-Law Said Calmly – In the House I Built and At the Table I Paid For.

A Birthday Toast to Invisibility

Dan got home from work at 7. He looked tired.

He took off his shoes at the entrance and collapsed on the sofa.

“What’s for dinner, Mom?”

he asked.

“Chicken mole, your favorite.”

“Perfect. I’m starving.”

I served them. He ate two plates.

He didn’t ask about Chloe. He didn’t ask how my day had been.

He just ate, watched television, and went to sleep. I stayed in the kitchen washing dishes, cleaning the stove, and putting away the leftovers.

When I finished, it was almost 10:00 at night. I went to my room, the small room, the one that used to be a storage closet.

The walls still had marks from where the shelves used to be. The window was tiny; hardly any light came in.

I sat on the bed and I looked around. All my things were crammed into that space.

My clothes were in a tiny closet. My photos were in a box because there was nowhere to hang them.

My rocking chair was in the garage. My kitchen was renovated without asking me.

My living room was full of furniture I hadn’t chosen. What was left of my house for me?

I lay down and I closed my eyes. But I couldn’t sleep.

The months kept passing and with every month I became smaller. Chloe started inviting more people over.

Her friends, her co-workers, distant cuisines, people I didn’t know walked in and out of my house like it was a hotel. One Saturday her brother arrived with his wife and their two kids.

Little kids who ran all over the house screaming and throwing things. They broke a vase that had belonged to my mother, one of those antique hand-painted ceramic vases.

“They’re just kids,”

Chloe told me when I showed her the pieces.

“They didn’t do it on purpose. Don’t be so dramatic.”

I gathered the pieces. I put them in a bag and I threw them in the trash.

And I said nothing more. Every time I complained, Dan told me the same thing.

“Mom, don’t exaggerate. Chloe is just trying to make the house look better.”

“Mom, understand. She lives here too. She has a right to change things.”

“Mom, don’t be so sensitive. It’s just furniture.”

Just furniture. Just walls.

Just things. But to me they weren’t just things.

They were my life. They were 30 years of memories.

It was the home I had built with my own hands when everyone told me I wouldn’t be able to do it alone. And now they were taking it away from me, piece by piece.

One afternoon, Khloe was talking on the phone with someone. I was in the kitchen washing vegetables.

She was in the living room, but she was talking so loud I could hear every word.

“Yeah, it’s a pain,”

she was saying.

“But it’s free. We don’t pay rent. We don’t pay utilities. We don’t pay for anything. I just have to put up with the old woman.”

She laughed.

“I know, I know, but Dan says we still don’t have enough saved up, so I have to act like everything is fine.”

The knife fell from my hands. It made a sharp noise against the sink.

Chloe didn’t notice. She kept talking and she kept laughing.

I stood there, hands wet, watching the water run. Is that how she saw me?

As something to be put up with? As the price she had to pay for not paying rent?

That night when Dan got home, I tried to talk to him.

“Son, I need to tell you something.”

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

“I think it’s time for you to find your own place. It’s been over a year. You said it would only be a few months.”

Dan frowned.

“Mom, we’ve talked about this. It’s hard out there.”

“But I…”

I stopped.

I didn’t know how to say it without sounding selfish, without sounding like the bitter mother-in-law everyone describes.

“It’s just that this is my house, Dan. And I feel like I don’t have any space left.”

“You don’t have space?”

Dan raised his voice.

“Mom, this house is huge. You have your room. What more do you want?”

“My room was the storage closet, Dan.”

“But it’s a room and besides we help with the expenses. I pay the water, the electricity, the gas. Without us, how would you pay for all that?”

I fell silent. He was right.

Since they had arrived, I no longer paid the utilities; Dan did. And with my pension, I barely had enough for my personal expenses.

“Forget it,”

I said.

“It’s nothing.”

“Mom, don’t be like that. I understand it’s complicated to live together sometimes, but we’re family and family supports each other.”

Yes, family supports each other. But who was supporting me?

The weeks kept passing and I kept getting smaller, more invisible. I no longer cooked what I wanted; I cooked what Chloe asked for.

I no longer watched my shows on television; I watched what they put on. I no longer invited my friends over because Chloe always had people at the house and there was no room for mine.

Sharon, my neighbor, came to visit me from time to time. She was a woman my age, a widow too, who lived alone in the house next door.

We had been friends for years. One day she came over for coffee.

She sat in the kitchen with me and she looked around.

“You changed the kitchen?”

she asked.

“Kloe changed it.”

“Ah.”

Sharon took a sip of coffee.

“And what do you think?”

I shrugged.

“It’s fine. More modern.”

Sharon looked at me with those eyes that knew me too well.

“Eleanor, are you okay?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I don’t know. You seem different. Sadder.”

“I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“Tired of what? You don’t work like you used to.”

It was true. Since Dan and Kloe arrived, I no longer did laundry for others and I no longer cooked for events.

They had told me it wasn’t necessary anymore, that they supported me, that I could finally rest. But it wasn’t rest I felt; it was uselessness.

“Sharon, have you ever felt like you don’t matter anymore?”

I asked her suddenly.

She put her cup down on the table.

“All the time,”

she said.

“Ever since I was widowed. Ever since my kids left. Sometimes I feel like I’m just here taking up space, waiting for something to happen or for nothing to happen.”

I nodded. I knew exactly what she meant.

“But Eleanor,”

Sharon continued.

“It’s one thing to feel lonely when you’re alone. It’s another thing entirely to feel lonely when there are people around you. That’s worse because it means you’re surrounded by people who don’t see you.”

Her words stabbed me in the chest. I was surrounded by people who didn’t see me.

My son lived in my house, but he didn’t see me. My daughter-in-law slept under my roof, but she didn’t see me.

I was there cooking, cleaning, existing, but nobody saw me.

“So what do I do?”

I asked Sharon.

She sighed.

“I don’t know, my friend. I wish I did.”