“My son had a much better life before he met you!” my mother-in-law declared.
I slowly set my glass back down on the table.
Then I looked at Carmen.
“Then take him back, if he agrees.”
The dining room fell silent in an instant.
Javier, my husband, who was sitting beside me, stopped chewing.
His sister, Lucía, looked up from her phone.
Antonio, Carmen’s husband, discreetly coughed into his napkin.
And Carmen herself stared at me with her mouth slightly open.
“Excuse me?”
“You say your son had a better life before me. So ask him if he wants to move back in with you.”
“Elena…” Javier muttered.
I turned my head toward him.
“What? It’s a perfectly simple suggestion.”
Carmen dropped her fork onto the table with a sharp clatter.
“Don’t be disrespectful.”
“I’m not. I’m just trying to understand what exactly you expect from me.”
It was Sunday, a little after two in the afternoon.
We were having lunch at Carmen and Antonio’s house.
At first, everything had gone fairly well.
Roast chicken, potatoes, salad, wine.
Then Carmen had asked Javier why he looked so tired.
“Work was busy this week,” he replied.
A perfectly normal answer.
But Carmen immediately looked at me.
“Of course. He’s always working.”
I said nothing.
Then she noticed Javier’s shirt.
“It’s wrinkled.”
Still, I said nothing.
Then:
“You’ve lost weight.”
Javier sighed.
“Mom, I’ve lost two kilos because I go running three times a week.”
“You used to look better.”
And finally, looking directly at me, she announced:
“My son had a much better life before he met you!”
And that was how we had ended up here.
Carmen folded her arms.
“Before he met you, Javier at least ate properly.”
I glanced at my husband’s plate.
He had just helped himself to potatoes for the second time.
“He still seems perfectly capable of feeding himself.”
Lucía quickly lowered her head to hide a smile.
Carmen noticed.
“This isn’t funny.”
“Mom, nobody said it was funny,” Javier interrupted.
“You stay quiet. I’m talking to your wife.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“That’s exactly the problem.”
“What problem?”
“You talk about Javier as if he were eight years old.”
“I’m his mother.”
“Yes. And he’s thirty-eight.”
Antonio reached for his glass of water.
“Carmen, let’s just eat in peace.”
“No, Antonio. Someone has to say these things.”
She turned back to me.
“He used to always have home-cooked meals.”
Javier frowned.
“Mom, when I lived alone, I ordered food at least three times a week.”
“Not always.”
“Very often.”
“And when you came to my house, I cooked for you.”
“Yes. When I came to your house.”
I had to stop myself from smiling.
Carmen continued.
“His clothes were always immaculate.”
This time Javier laughed.
“You never did my laundry when I lived alone.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Carmen hesitated.
“You took better care of yourself.”
“I take care of myself now.”
“Look at yourself today.”
Javier looked down at his light blue shirt.
“What’s wrong with my shirt?”
“It’s wrinkled.”
He ran a hand over his sleeve.
“I took it out of the dryer myself this morning.”
Carmen shot me an accusing look.
“See?”
I blinked.
“See what?”
“You let him go out looking like that.”
This time even Antonio looked up.
“Carmen…”
But I raised a hand.
“No, let her continue. I genuinely want to hear this.”
Carmen straightened in her chair.
“A wife should take care of her husband.”
“And a husband?”
“What about a husband?”
“Should he take care of his wife too, or does he get a special exemption?”
Lucía stifled a laugh.
“Lucía!” Carmen snapped.
“Sorry.”
She didn’t look sorry at all.
Javier leaned slightly over the table.
“Mom, Elena doesn’t have to iron my shirts.”
“You only say that because she’s trained you to accept anything.”
I slowly turned my head toward him.
“You hear that?”
“I hear it.”
“Apparently, I’ve trained you very badly.”
“Elena,” Carmen hissed.
“It was a joke.”
“A tasteless one.”
“Just like saying your son had a better life before me.”
Carmen pressed her lips together.
“It’s the truth.”
“Fine. Then let’s talk about it.”
Javier put down his fork.
“Elena, you don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do. Now I’m curious.”
I looked at Carmen.
“In what way was his life better?”
She answered immediately.
“He had more freedom.”
That genuinely surprised me.
“More freedom?”
“Yes.”
“Javier, do I forbid you from going out?”
“No.”
“From seeing your friends?”
“No.”
“From visiting your family?”
“No.”
“From having your own hobbies?”
“No.”
Carmen shook her head.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Before, he didn’t have to discuss every decision with someone.”
Finally, I understood.
“Ah.”
“What do you mean, ‘ah’?”
“Now we’re getting to the real problem.”
“What real problem?”
“Before we got married, Javier made decisions by himself because those decisions only affected him.”
“Exactly!”
“Now he’s married.”
“So?”
“So some decisions affect both of us.”
Carmen rolled her eyes.
“That’s what you’ve put into his head.”
Javier abruptly dropped his napkin onto the table.
“Mom, stop.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“Stop talking as if Elena controls my life.”
“I can see what’s happening.”
“No. You see what you want to see.”
Carmen went slightly pale.
Javier continued.
“If I want to buy a phone, I buy one. If I want to see my friends, I see them. If I want to spend a weekend somewhere, we talk about it because I’m married and it affects Elena too.”
“Before, you didn’t have to ask permission.”
“I’m not asking permission.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“No.”
Javier shook his head.
“That’s exactly what you don’t understand.”
Antonio remained silent, but his gaze shifted between Carmen and his son.
Carmen turned toward me.
“Since he’s been with you, he visits us less often.”
“Javier works five days a week.”
“He worked before too.”
“And we have our own life.”
“There it is. Your life. Always your life.”
“Yes, Carmen. That’s usually what happens when two adults get married.”
“You have an answer for everything.”
“Only when you blame me for everything.”
Javier sighed.
“Mom, we come here at least twice a month.”
“You used to come every week.”
“I used to be single.”
“So?”
Javier stared at her.
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
Carmen said nothing.
Lucía cautiously joined in.
“Mom, I don’t come every week either.”
“That’s different.”
Lucía gave a small laugh.
“Of course.”
“You live farther away.”
“Twenty minutes farther away.”
“That’s not the point.”
I picked up my glass.
Carmen was still looking at me.
“And since he’s been with you, he spends much more money.”
Javier looked surprised.
“What?”
“The trips. The restaurants. The furniture. That car.”
I put my glass down.
“His car?”
“Yes.”
“He bought it before we got married.”
Carmen hesitated for a second.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“I think it matters if you’re blaming me for it.”
“You two are always going somewhere.”
“Our last trip was six months ago.”
“And how much did you pay for it?”
“Mom,” Javier said.
“I’m just asking a question.”
“That’s none of your business.”
Carmen stared at him.
“There. Another thing that’s changed.”
“What?”
“You used to tell me everything.”
This time Javier fell silent.
And suddenly, the atmosphere changed.
Because that sentence had nothing to do with shirts, food, or money.
That was the real problem.
Javier understood it too.
“Yes,” he finally said. “I used to tell you almost everything.”
Carmen nodded as if she had just won.
“See?”
“But that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.”
Her smile disappeared.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I was thirty years old and still calling you for advice about decisions I should have been making on my own.”
“Because you respected your mother.”
“I still respect you.”
“It doesn’t look like it.”
“Respect doesn’t mean you have to know everything.”
Carmen sat completely still.
Javier continued more calmly.
“When I met Elena, I started building a life with someone else. That’s normal.”
“So I became useless.”
“I never said that.”
“That’s what it means.”
“No. It means your role changed.”
She looked at him as if he had slapped her.
“My role?”
“Yes. You’re my mother. You’ll always be my mother. But you’re no longer the person I make every decision with.”
A heavy silence settled over the table.
Antonio lowered his eyes to his plate.
Lucía had long since forgotten about her phone.
Carmen’s eyes were glistening.
For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
Then she looked at me.
“She taught you to talk to me like this.”
And my sympathy vanished.
Javier slowly shook his head.
“No, Mom.”
“Before her, you never would have spoken to me this way.”
“Before her, I never had to say certain things to you.”
“Because we didn’t have any problems!”
“Because I always gave in.”
Carmen froze.
“What?”
“I gave in. It was easier.”
He took a deep breath.
“When you chose the restaurant, I said yes. When you decided what time I should come over, I came. When you wanted to know how much I earned, I told you. When you criticized my girlfriends, I eventually broke up with them.”
I turned sharply toward Javier.
I hadn’t known that last part.
Carmen straightened.
“I only wanted what was best for you.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you holding it against me?”
“I’m not. I’m simply explaining that what you call ‘my better life before Elena’ was mostly a life in which I rarely said no to you.”
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Antonio carefully put down his fork.
“He’s not entirely wrong, Carmen.”
She spun toward him.
“You too?”
Antonio sighed.
“This isn’t an attack.”
“So now everyone is against me.”
“No one is against you,” Lucía said.
“You stay out of it.”
Lucía raised her hands.
“Fine.”
Carmen stood up from the table.
“I understand.”
Javier stood as well.
“Mom…”
“No. Stay there with your wife.”
I took a deep breath.
“Carmen.”
She looked at me.
“What now?”
“I don’t want to take your son away from you.”
“That’s exactly what you’ve done.”
“No.”
I gestured toward Javier.
“Your son is an adult. He doesn’t belong to me any more than he belongs to you.”
Carmen clenched her jaw.
“Easy for you to say when he does everything you want.”
I turned toward Javier.
“Do you want to move back in with your mother?”
His eyes widened.
“What?”
“She says you had a much better life before me.”
I gestured toward Carmen.
“I offered to let her take you back if you agreed. So we might as well ask you directly.”
Lucía covered her mouth with one hand.
Antonio suddenly found his napkin extremely interesting.
Javier stared at me for a few seconds.
Then he turned to his mother.
“Do you really want to know?”
Carmen didn’t answer.
“I had a good life before Elena,” Javier said. “I’m not going to pretend I was unhappy.”
Carmen lifted her chin slightly.
“But?”
“But my life is better now.”
Her expression hardened.
“Of course.”
“Not because Elena cooks better, irons my shirts, or lets me do whatever I want.”
A slight smile appeared on his face.
“Actually, she almost never irons my shirts.”
I couldn’t help smiling.
“I can confirm that.”
“Javier, this isn’t funny,” Carmen said.
“I’m not joking.”
He became serious again.
“My life is better because I’ve built something of my own. A marriage. A home. Plans. An adult life.”
Carmen looked away.
“So your old family doesn’t matter anymore.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“That’s exactly what you just said.”
“No. I’m saying my life has grown. Elena didn’t replace you.”
He paused.
“But my life doesn’t revolve around you anymore.”
Carmen picked up her plate.
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
She walked into the kitchen.
Antonio watched her go without moving.
A few seconds later, we heard the plate hit the sink a little harder than necessary.
Lucía leaned toward me.
“Just so you know, he really did eat a lot of frozen pizza before you.”
Javier looked at her.
“Thanks for the support.”
“I’m just defending the truth.” Despite the tension, I laughed.
Then Carmen returned to the dining room with her handbag.
“I’m going for a walk.”
Antonio looked up.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No.”
She put on her coat.
Before leaving, she looked at Javier.
“I just hope that one day you understand everything I’ve done for you.”
Javier stood.
“I already do, Mom.”
She stopped.
“And I’m grateful for it. But being grateful doesn’t mean I have to spend my entire life living the way I did when I was twenty-five.”
Carmen didn’t answer.
She opened the door. Then her eyes met mine.
“You must be very pleased with yourself.”
“Not really.”
She frowned.
“Why?”
“Because I’d much rather be able to have lunch with you without having to prove that I haven’t ruined your son’s life.”
For once, Carmen had nothing to say.
She walked out.
The door closed behind her.
A long silence followed.
Then Antonio calmly reached for the bottle of wine.
“Anyone want some more?”
Lucía immediately held out her glass.
“A lot.”
Javier sat back down beside me.
Under the table, he placed his hand over mine.
“Just so we’re clear,” he murmured, “I’m not moving back in with my mother.”
I turned toward him.
“Too bad. I’d already decided what I was going to do with your half of the closet.”
He smiled.
“See? That’s exactly why I’m staying.”
Two days later, Carmen called Javier.
I wasn’t there for their conversation.
He told me about it that evening.
“Did she apologize?” I asked.
“Not exactly.” “So, no.”
He smiled.
“She said she ‘might have overreacted a little.’”
“That’s practically historic.”
“And she asked whether I was eating properly.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Of course she did.”
Javier laughed.
Then he became more serious.
“But I told her something.”
“What?”
“That the next time she wants to compare my life before and after you, she should ask me directly.”
“And what did she say?” Javier picked up his glass of water.
“She said she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.”
I smiled.
“At least she understood this time.”
Javier nodded.
“I think so.”
Then he looked down at his slightly wrinkled shirt.
“There was one thing she was right about, though.”
“What?”
“This shirt really does look terrible.”
I looked at him.
“The iron is in the closet.”
He burst out laughing.
“See? That’s exactly why my life has been so difficult since I met you.”