Chapter 2 - The Silent Burden
That summer, the weather stayed beautiful.
Warm.
Clear.
Sunny almost every weekend.
So we came to the cabin constantly.
Me and Daniel.
Susan and Richard.
Mom.
And every weekend slowly became the same.
Mom got up at six every morning.
Before everyone else.
I would hear her downstairs.
Coffee brewing.
Pan on the stove.
Old country music playing softly from the radio.
She cooked breakfast for everyone.
Bacon.
Eggs.
Pancakes.
French toast.
Or her blueberry muffins from scratch.
Then she cleaned everything.
Every pan.
Every fork.
Every plate.
Then she stripped beds.
Washed towels.
Hung them outside.
Then she drove nearly forty minutes round-trip to the larger grocery store because Susan didn’t like the mayonnaise sold at the little store near the lake.
Susan only ate avocado-oil mayonnaise.
The expensive kind.
Eleven dollars a jar.
Mom learned that the first weekend when Susan took one bite of chicken salad and said,
“Oh. Is this regular mayonnaise?”
Mom drove into town the next morning.
She bought three jars.
Then she made lunch.
Cleaned lunch.
Made dinner.
Cleaned dinner.
Salmon.
Pot roast.
Chicken piccata.
Homemade pasta.
And every Saturday night, peach cobbler.
Why?
Because Richard mentioned once that he liked peach cobbler.
Mom remembered.
Of course she did.
Then around ten every night, she went to bed exhausted.
And at six the next morning, she started again.
Susan’s weekends looked slightly different.
She arrived Friday evening.
Walked through the cabin saying,
“Oh, this is so cute.”
Every single weekend.
As though she were seeing it for the first time.
Then she went straight outside.
There was one large lounger with a striped cushion in the center of the deck.
Best view of the lake.
Susan claimed it almost immediately.
Sunglasses.
Iced tea.
Phone.
And that was basically her weekend.
All summer, she never once offered to help.
Not once.
Eight weekends.
She never carried a plate to the sink.
Never chopped an onion.
Never wiped a countertop.
Never folded a towel.
She wouldn’t even bring her coffee mug back inside.
Every morning, it sat on the side table next to her chair.
By noon, it would leave a ring on the wood.
Mom would come out, pick it up, wipe the table, and carry the cup inside.
At first, Susan would say,
“Thanks, Maggie.”
Without looking up from her phone.
By July, she stopped saying that too.
That bothered me more than almost anything.
Mom could spend two hours preparing a meal, place the plate directly in front of Susan, and Susan would simply begin eating.
No thank you.
No acknowledgment.
As though dinner had appeared by itself.
I brought it up to Daniel once.
We were lying in bed at the cabin with the lights off.
“Your mom never helps.”
“I know.”
“She doesn’t even say thank you anymore.”
“I know.”
He was quiet.
“She’s always been like that. At home Dad does most things. Mom plans. She decides. But she doesn’t really do.”
“This isn’t her house.”
“I know.”
“Should I say something?”
Daniel thought for a long time.
“I don’t know.”
That was his honest answer.
“I don’t know what saying something would do.”
May you like
So I let it go.
For a while.
