Two days after my wedding, my mother-in-law fired the housekeeper, tossed her apron into my face, and said, “Congratulations.
Now you can finally earn your place in this family.” My husband laughed—and that was the exact moment I stopped wondering whether marrying him had been a mistake.
The woman she fired was Maria, who had worked in the Whitmore mansion for eleven years.
She stood by the kitchen door clutching her handbag, eyes wet with humiliation.
“You can go,” my mother-in-law, Patricia, said coldly.
“We have a younger woman now.”
Then she looked at me.
I was still wearing the silk robe my husband, Daniel, had bought for our honeymoon.
“Breakfast at seven.
Laundry on Mondays.
Bathrooms twice a week.
Daniel likes his shirts pressed.”
I stared at the apron lying at my feet.
“You fired Maria because you expect me to replace her?”
Patricia smiled.
