…staring at his mother, who looked like she had melted.
Or, more accurately, like a bright orange, patchy Oompa Loompa who had lost a fight with a belt sander.
Linda was standing in the middle of my bathroom, clutching her face. Her skin was a streaky, vibrant tangerine color, and—horrifyingly—her eyebrows were completely gone.
“What did you put in there?!” Daniel yelled, pointing at the open jar of my ‘$1,000 cream’ on the counter.
Linda turned to him, fake tears streaming down her orange cheeks. “I just wanted to freshen up! I thought I’d borrow a tiny bit of her moisturizer since my skin is so dry from the stress! But she poisoned it! She tried to burn my face off!”
She pointed a stained finger at me. “You did this on purpose! Daniel, look at me!”
Daniel looked at me, bewildered. “Honey? What is in that jar?”
I leaned against the doorframe, crossing my arms. I felt a calm satisfaction I hadn’t felt in years.
“Well,” I said, keeping my voice level. “After Linda used half of my actual La Mer cream yesterday—which, by the way, was a gift from my late grandmother—I hid the real jar in my car safe.”
“Then what is this?” Daniel asked, horrified, looking at the sludge in the decoy jar.
“Oh, that?” I smiled. “Since Linda loves rearranging things, I figured I’d use the empty jar to mix a batch of industrial-strength self-tanner and hair removal cream. I was going to use it to prep my legs for summer later this week. I labeled the bottom of the jar ‘DO NOT TOUCH – CHEMICALS,’ but I guess Linda didn’t bother checking before she helped herself to my things. Again.”
Silence filled the bathroom.
Linda gasped, realizing she had just admitted to stealing and that she was now bald above the eyes. “You… you set a trap!”
“I put a mixture in a jar in my bathroom,” I countered. “The only way it becomes a trap is if someone steals it.”
I looked at Daniel. This was the moment. Usually, he’d ask me to apologize. He’d say I should have labeled it better. He’d say, ‘She’s my mom, cut her some slack.’
Daniel looked at his mother—bright orange, eyebrow-less, standing in a bathroom she had redecorated without permission, wearing my robe that she had claimed for herself. He looked at the jar. Then he looked at me.
The fog finally lifted.
“You went through our cabinets again,” Daniel said, his voice low.
“Daniel! My face!” Linda shrieked.
“You stole from her,” he said, louder this time. “First, you moved the furniture. Then you invited strangers into our home. Now you’re stealing expensive things from the bathroom? After I asked you—begged you—to respect her space?”
“I am your mother!”
“And she is my wife!” Daniel roared. The sound bounced off the tiles. “And this is her house. Not yours.”
He pointed to the door. “Pack your bag, Mom. You’re going to a hotel. I’ll pay for the first two nights. After that, you figure out your pipe situation on your own.”
“You can’t be serious! Look at me!”
“I am looking at you,” Daniel said, his voice cracking with exhaustion. “And frankly, it’s hard to miss. Get out.”
Linda left twenty minutes later, wearing oversized sunglasses and a scarf wrapped around her head like a celebrity in hiding.
It took three weeks for her eyebrows to grow back and a month for the orange to fully fade. She hasn’t asked to stay with us since. And as for Daniel? He bought me a brand new jar of cream, installed a lock on our bedroom door, and finally realized that “peaceful” and “predictable” were worth fighting for.
