“I think you’re right,” I said.
Both of them looked surprised.
My mother-in-law smiled and started stacking another pile of plates. “See? That’s all I’ve been trying to—”
“No,” I said. “You’re right that somebody has to do something. So I’m doing it.”
Then I walked over to the drawer beside the refrigerator, pulled out an envelope, and set it on the counter.
A month earlier, after finding her inside my house while I was at work for the third time that week, I’d finally changed the locks.
I also had a lawyer send a letter formally revoking permission for anyone to enter our home without us present.
My husband knew about it. He’d promised, again, that he’d handle his mother. He never did.
My mother-in-law stopped smiling when she saw her own name on the envelope.
“I wasn’t going to embarrass you with it,” I said. “But since we’re apparently discussing who needs help, here it is.”
Her sister suddenly became very interested in her coffee cup.
My mother-in-law opened the letter and read it. Her face turned red.
“You had a lawyer send me this?”
“No. I had a lawyer send it after you ignored me asking nicely for three years.”
About then my husband came through the front door.
For once, before his mother could start crying or tell her version first, I handed him the same letter.
Then I told him, calmly, that either he explained to his mother that our house was not hers, or the next conversation would involve him finding somewhere else to live too.
The room got very quiet.
A week later my mother-in-law returned her key.
Two weeks later she called before visiting.
Three months later she was still annoyed about it.
But my dishes stayed where I put them.
And for the first time since we’d bought that house, when I came home from the grocery store, everything in my kitchen was exactly where I’d left it.