“If you had any sense of shame, you would have bought proper napkins for the celebration instead of putting this cheap paper from the clearance aisle on the table. Serving guests with these is embarrassing.”
Sharon pinched one of the thin napkins between two fingers, held it up as though it were something unpleasant, and tossed it toward the edge of the linen tablecloth.
Margaret stood beside the china cabinet, holding a heavy crystal serving dish. A small ache passed 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 celebration. Tiny blue flowers covered the white paper. She had spent nearly half an hour comparing packages, searching for a pattern that would look right with the old holiday china her mother had left her.
The little living room was warm and inviting. Rich smells of home cooking filled the apartment—the kind of fragrance found only in a home where someone has spent almost two full days standing over the stove. There was garlic, dill, pastry, roasted meat, and herbs in the air.
Margaret had begun preparing everything on Thursday evening. After her shift in the laboratory at the local medical clinic, she stopped at the market and chose a fresh pork roast. Later, she stayed up until midnight making a savory chicken aspic. She had skimmed every trace of foam and grease from the broth until it turned clear and delicate.
The occasion mattered. Ethan and Lauren were celebrating their wedding anniversary. It was an important date for the young couple, and Margaret wanted to give them a warm family evening.
They had told her beforehand that a restaurant was out of the question. Nearly all their spare money was going toward payments on the car they had recently bought. Margaret had simply nodded, invited everyone to her apartment, and taken responsibility for the entire meal.
“Mom, you know perfectly well that Sharon likes everything to look elegant,” Lauren remarked. She examined her freshly painted nails without making the slightest attempt to help arrange the plates. “You could have taken out the cloth napkins, starched them, and folded them properly. We are celebrating an anniversary at home, after all.”
Ethan was sprawled comfortably on the sofa, scrolling through his phone. His expression made it clear that table settings had nothing to do with him.
Sharon’s husband, George, a broad-shouldered, usually quiet man, sat a little apart from the others. He was studying the fern on the windowsill with such concentration that Margaret suspected he wished he could disappear among its leaves. He knew his wife’s temper better than anyone.
“The tablecloth is clean, the good china is out, and everything is ready,” Margaret answered evenly. She placed the crystal dish beside a large bowl of salad. “Let’s sit down before the appetizers dry out.”
Sharon lowered herself onto a cushioned chair, adjusted the bright silk scarf around her broad shoulders, and surveyed the table like an inspector searching for violations.
For twenty years she had worked as a buyer for a large wholesale company. Even now, she mentioned old professional connections whenever she had the chance, treating them as proof that she belonged to a higher class of people.
“Margaret, this is honestly so old-fashioned,” she drawled with an exaggerated sigh, tapping the creamy potato salad with her fork. “Another enormous bowl of mayonnaise. Who serves something like this for an anniversary? Modern people make light salads—arugula, shrimp, avocado, a proper dressing. This is nothing but cholesterol. We’ll spend the entire night regretting it.”
Margaret eased herself onto the edge of a chair near the kitchen door. Her feet and knees ached after a full day of standing.
“Ethan has loved that salad since he was little. I made it especially for him. The pickles are homemade, the chicken came from a farm, and I used real meat instead of cheap deli sausage.”
Sharon twisted her brightly painted lips and pushed the bowl farther away.
“What difference does that make if everything is drowning in bargain mayonnaise? You could have asked the young people what fashionable families serve now. And what is that?”
She pointed at the clear dish.
“Chicken aspic? In May? Margaret, that is dreadful taste. Aspic belongs in winter, at Christmas—or at a funeral.”
Lauren pressed her lips together and nodded in agreement with her mother.
Ethan made a vague sound without looking up from his phone.
Margaret glanced at her son and remembered his visit exactly one week earlier. He had stopped by after work looking exhausted, wrinkled, and gray with worry. He had told her there was almost nothing left after the next car payment—not even enough for a full tank of gas.
Then he had asked her to make “something decent and homemade, like you used to,” because takeout and frozen meals were upsetting his stomach.
So Margaret had done her best.