My mother-in-law never missed a chance to belittle everything about me. But when she mocked my professional baking skills at her birthday party, right after I’d made her an award-winning cake for free, I was done being quiet. I showed her exactly who she was messing with.
You know that feeling when a cunning smile cuts deeper than a shout?
That’s been my life with Wendy for the past eight years.
My mother-in-law has this talent. She can make you feel two inches tall with just a smile and a few carefully chosen words.
It doesn’t matter what I do or how hard I try.
There’s always something wrong with me in her eyes.
Last month at Tyler’s cousin’s wedding, I wore a navy dress I’d been saving for a special occasion. The moment Wendy saw me, her eyebrows shot up.
“Oh Sandra, that’s…
quite a statement,” she said, looking me up and down.
“Very bold. Not sure I could pull off something so attention-grabbing.”
Her sister Margaret nodded along like a bobblehead. “Definitely makes a statement.”
I felt my cheeks burn.
The dress was simple and elegant.
There was nothing flashy about it. But somehow, Wendy made it sound like I’d shown up in a carnival costume.
It’s always something.
Even the way I parent my seven-year-old daughter, Mia, gets criticized constantly.
“You’re spoiling that child rotten,” Wendy told Tyler right in front of me last Christmas. “In my day, children weren’t coddled every time they skinned a knee.”
Mia had fallen off her bike and scraped her elbow.
I was putting a bandage on it and giving her a hug.
Apparently, that was too much pampering for Wendy’s taste.
Even my laugh isn’t safe from her judgment. At Tyler’s birthday dinner two years ago, I heard Wendy whisper to Margaret, “She sounds like a wounded goose when she laughs.”
They both snickered together like schoolgirls sharing a secret. They didn’t even try to hide it and acted like I wasn’t sitting three feet away from them at the dinner table.
I’ve spent years swallowing these little cuts, forcing myself to smile when I wanted to scream and biting my tongue until it nearly bled.
“Maybe we should just keep our distance,” I suggested to Tyler after the goose comment.
***
Three weeks ago, my phone rang while I was decorating a wedding cake.
The caller ID showed Wendy’s name.
She never called me directly.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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