My mother-in-law (MIL), Eleanor, wasn’t my mother. My husband’s mother was a churchgoing woman who color-coded my spice rack and once apologized for using too much dish soap.
Still, she preferred the guest bedroom door closed.
I pushed the thought away.
I braced a knee on the mattress and wrenched the elastic up over the corner, muttering something unkind as I struggled.
Two weeks ago, I’d walked past the guest room and heard humming through the door, low and content, as if someone were talking to a plant. Last month, my father-in-law (FIL), Harold, had wandered into the kitchen chuckling about “her little projects.”
Eleanor had shushed him with a smile so fast it was like a magic trick.
I braced a knee on the mattress.
“My flour girl,” Harold had said once in the hallway, and she’d swatted his arm!
I hadn’t asked. It didn’t seem like my business. That was the whole art of hosting your in-laws for six months instead of six weeks, wasn’t it? You minded your own business. You respected their closed door. You did not become the daughter-in-law (DIL) who pried.
I had been so proud of myself for not prying.
