“If you had any sense of pride, you would have bought proper napkins for the celebration instead of putting this bargain-bin paper on the table. Serving something like that to guests is embarrassing.”
Diane pinched one of the thin napkins between two fingers as if it were dirty and flicked it toward the edge of the linen tablecloth.
Margaret stood beside the china cabinet, holding a heavy crystal fish dish in both hands. A sharp little pain went through her chest, but she said nothing. Her fingers only tightened around the cold, cut glass.
She had chosen those napkins the day before, especially for the family gathering. Delicate blue cornflowers were printed across the white paper. Margaret had spent a long time comparing packages, searching for a pattern that would look right beside the old festive dinnerware her mother had once given her.
The small living room was warm and comfortable. The air carried the rich, mingled scents of homemade food—the kind of smell that filled an apartment when its owner had spent nearly two days standing over the stove. There was the fragrance of fresh pastry, garlic, dill, roasted meat, and spices.
Margaret had begun preparing everything on Thursday. After her shift at the clinic laboratory, she went to the market and selected a fresh pork shoulder. That evening, she stayed up late making aspic from a farm chicken. She patiently skimmed every bit of foam and excess fat from the broth until it became perfectly clear.
The occasion mattered. Her son Daniel and his wife Emily were celebrating their wedding anniversary. It was an important date for the young couple, and Margaret wanted to give them a genuinely warm family evening.
They had warned her in advance that a café or restaurant was too expensive for them at the moment. Almost every spare dollar was going toward the loan on their recently purchased car. So Margaret had immediately offered to host the celebration and taken complete responsibility for the food.
“Mom, you know perfectly well that Diane likes everything to look elegant,” Emily remarked as she admired her fresh manicure. She did not make the slightest attempt to help her mother-in-law arrange the plates. “You could at least have brought out cloth napkins, starched them, and folded them properly. We are celebrating an anniversary at home, after all.”
Daniel was stretched out comfortably on the sofa, scrolling through news on his phone. His posture made it clear that setting the table had nothing to do with him.
Diane’s husband, Thomas, a broad, usually quiet man, sat slightly apart from everyone else. He was studying the fern on the windowsill with such concentration that he looked as though he hoped the leaves might swallow him. He knew his wife’s temperament far too well.
“The tablecloth is clean, the good dishes are out, and everything is ready,” Margaret replied evenly. She placed the crystal fish dish beside a large rounded salad bowl. “Let’s sit down before the appetizers dry out.”
Diane lowered herself heavily into a soft chair, adjusted the bright silk scarf draped over her broad shoulders, and inspected the table like a strict food inspector. The old sense of superiority in her eyes was impossible to miss.
For twenty years, Diane had worked as a purchasing clerk at a large wholesale warehouse. Even now, whenever the opportunity arose, she liked to mention her former connections, as though they proved that she belonged to a higher social circle.
“Margaret, honestly, this is straight out of another era,” she sighed, tapping the bowl of potato salad with her fork. “Another enormous dish of mayonnaise. Who serves that at an anniversary dinner anymore? Modern people make light salads—arugula, shrimp, avocado, a decent dressing. This is nothing but cholesterol. We’ll be paying for it all night.”
Margaret carefully sat on the edge of a chair near the kitchen door. After spending the entire day on her feet, her knees and soles ached.
“Daniel has loved this salad since he was a child. I made it especially for him. The pickles are homemade, the chicken is from a farm, and I used real meat instead of cheap store-bought sausage.”
Diane curled her brightly painted lips and pushed the bowl farther away.
“What difference does it make whether the chicken is homemade if everything is drowning in cheap mayonnaise? You could have asked the young couple what people serve at celebrations these days. And what is that supposed to be?”
“Aspic.”
“In May?” Diane stared at her. “Margaret, that is simply dreadful taste. Aspic is for winter—for Christmas, or, heaven forbid, funerals.”
Emily pressed her lips together and nodded in agreement with her mother.
Daniel gave a vague grunt without lifting his eyes from the screen.
Margaret looked at her son and remembered how he had stopped by exactly one week earlier after work. He had been exhausted, rumpled, and gray-faced. Daniel had complained that he had no money left at all. After making the latest car payment, he had barely enough for gas.