A month after my div0rce, my ex-m0ther-in-law called at 5 a.m., demanding I cook for her husband’s 70th birthday. After years as a servant, I replied, “Who is this?” Hours later, they learned the truth.

“Oh.”

I sat up.

“I thought you had the wrong number. I’m not your daughter-in-law anymore.”

She laughed.

Not because anything was funny.

Because she genuinely believed my divorce changed nothing.

“Stop being ridiculous. Almost thirty people are coming for Charles’s seventieth birthday. You’re making the herb roast, wild rice, braised beef parcels, garden salad, and that walnut cake Charles likes.”

She continued listing instructions as if the previous month had never happened.

For ten years, this had been my role.

Thanksgiving.