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

The thing that had been building was not a single incident. It was an accumulation, the kind that does not announce itself until one day you are standing in a grocery store watching your mother-in-law load a gold box of chocolate truffles into your cart, and you feel, suddenly and absolutely, that something has to change. Three weeks earlier, Patricia had asked, just as a thought, whether Daniel and I had ever considered adding her name to our homeowner’s insurance policy.

It would just be easier, she said, for emergencies. I said I would look into it and had not, and I had been glad I had not. Two weeks before that, she had mentioned casually that her condo was getting a bit small and that some families find it works beautifully to have a separate suite.

I changed the subject. One week ago, she had been in our kitchen while I was at work. Daniel had let her in, and when I came home, I found she had reorganized my pantry.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she had said when she saw my face. “I just thought it would be more functional.”