“Where are the meat patties? I fried an entire bowl of them last night—there must have been twenty, at least.”
Claire stared in disbelief at the empty saucepan sitting alone on the kitchen shelf.
Then she looked toward her husband’s brother, who was sprawled at the table. Mark was lazily picking at his teeth, his plate pushed aside. Only greasy streaks and a few crumbs of breading remained on it. He had not even bothered to carry the plate to the sink, despite having spent the entire day at home.
“I ate them,” he answered indifferently without looking up from his phone. “They were good. A little short on salt, though. Use more next time. And there wasn’t any side dish, so I had to finish them with bread.”
A slow, heavy anger began to rise inside Claire.
She had just come home from work. After a long shift at the hospital, her feet throbbed, her back ached, and there was only one thought in her mind: eat something quickly and finally lie down. The night before, she had deliberately spent two hours at the stove so there would be enough food for several days. She had expected to have a quiet evening and do nothing.
“Mark, that food was meant for everyone. For several days,” Claire said slowly, making every effort not to raise her voice. “There are three people living in this apartment. Did you really eat twenty meat patties in one day?”
“What’s the big deal?” he asked, genuinely surprised as he finally lifted his eyes from the phone. His expression was pure and innocent, almost childlike. “I’m a big man. I need plenty of energy. My body demands it. It’s not my fault your portions are so… tiny.”
“Tiny?”
Claire shut the refrigerator door with such force that the magnets rattled sadly.
“Two pounds of meat is a tiny portion to you? Do you have any idea what all of that cost? Or how long I stood in the kitchen making it?”
“Oh, here we go,” Mark muttered with a grimace. “Claire, don’t be so petty. Food is just food. When Daniel gets home, tell him to buy some frozen dumplings if cooking is such a burden for you. I’m not difficult to feed. I can eat those too, as long as they’re decent.”
Claire left the kitchen without answering. She needed a few minutes to calm herself before she said something she would regret. She hated shouting and hated domestic scenes even more.
Once she reached the bedroom, she simply sat down on the edge of the bed.
Mark had been living with them for three months already. “Temporarily,” Daniel had said when he met his brother at the bus station. Something had gone wrong for Mark in the city where he had previously lived. Maybe it was trouble with work, maybe problems in his personal life. His explanations were always vague. He had supposedly come to “look for new opportunities.”
In reality, his search was moving at an astonishingly slow pace.
Most of his days were spent stretched out on the sofa, watching television shows and messaging people online. He rarely went to interviews. Whenever Daniel asked about it, Mark always had the same answer:
“I’m not going to work for pennies, and there aren’t any respectable positions available yet.”
Daniel was clearly uncomfortable with the arrangement, but he preferred to remain silent.
“He’s still my brother, Claire,” he would say. “He’s family. I can’t throw him out onto the street. Just give him a little more time. He’ll find a job and move out.”
Claire had tried to be patient. She was a kind woman, and she had never resented giving a relative a bowl of soup.
But little by little, the situation became impossible to ignore.
A simple bowl of soup had quietly turned into full financial support for a healthy forty-year-old man. Mark bought no food at all. Not bread, not salt, not even a carton of milk. He sincerely believed that because he was staying with his brother, Daniel was obligated to feed him.
And cooking, naturally, was Claire’s responsibility. In Mark’s mind, preparing meals was “women’s work.”
That evening Daniel came home. His face was drawn and gray with exhaustion. Working construction drained nearly every ounce of strength from him.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said, kissing Claire. “Is there anything to eat? I’m starving.”
Claire silently pointed toward the empty stove.
“No, Daniel. There’s nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?” he asked in surprise. “You told me you made meat patties last night.”
“Your brother ate all of them. Every single one. The side dish too. He also finished the sausage I bought for our breakfast. There’s nothing in the refrigerator except a jar of mustard and an old lemon.”
Daniel let out a weary breath and rubbed his eyes.
“Again? I did ask him to leave some for us.”
“You asked him?” Claire folded her arms across her chest. “Daniel, your requests clearly aren’t working. We both have jobs. We’re paying the mortgage and all the household bills, and now we’re completely supporting a grown man who can’t even wash the plate he eats from. I’ve done the math. Our grocery costs have gone up dramatically. I was trying to save that money for our medical treatment.”