“Are you out of your mind? You want my mother to p…

Smoked salmon in vacuum-sealed packages. Imported French cheese wrapped in wax paper. Two bottles of aged balsamic vinegar that cost forty dollars each.

Hand-rolled chocolate truffles in a gold box. A jar of caviar, actual caviar, sitting right next to our milk and bread as if it belonged there. I had not chosen any of it.

But my mother-in-law, Patricia, was standing at the far end of the cart with her reading glasses perched on her nose and her silk blouse perfectly pressed, looking as if she were browsing a catalog instead of taking advantage of me in broad daylight. My name is Claire. I am thirty-four years old, and for six years I have been married to a man named Daniel, who loves his mother more than he has ever been willing to admit out loud.

That is not a criticism, or at least it did not used to be. In the beginning, his devotion to her seemed sweet. He called her every Sunday.

He fixed things around her house on weekends. He remembered her birthday, her half birthday, even the anniversary of her cat’s adoption. I found it endearing in the way some people find a golden retriever endearing: enthusiastic, loyal, occasionally overwhelming.

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