She regularly walked into my kitchen without knocking, opened my refrigerator, and took whatever she wanted.
One morning, she picked up the last carton of eggs.
“You’re almost out,” she said. “You should buy more. We’re family, and I need food too.”
“Diana, those are for the kids’ breakfast.”
She barely looked at me.
“Then get up earlier and make them something else.”
I learned to bite my tongue.
Unfortunately, staying quiet only encouraged her.
She threw her garbage into our bins because she didn’t want to pay for her own trash service.
Tools disappeared into her garage and never returned.
She criticized how I folded clothes, how I raised my children, and how I managed the household.
“You’re not much of a homemaker,” she would say. “Harold works all day, and this is what he comes home to?”
For years, I convinced myself that keeping the peace was worth swallowing my anger.
