The Glass on Easter Sunday

The wineglass left Vanessa’s hand before I fully understood that she had thrown it.

One second, she was standing across my dining room table with her fingers wrapped around the stem.

The next, the glass struck the side of my head.

I heard the crack before I felt the pain.

It bounced off me and shattered against the china cabinet Richard and I had bought twenty-seven years earlier.

Daniel jumped up.

“Vanessa!”

I pressed my palm against the side of my head. When I pulled it away, there was blood on my fingers.

Vanessa stared at me.

“I didn’t mean to hit you.”

That was the first thing she said.

Not Are you okay?

Not I’m sorry.

Just that.

I looked at my son.

“Daniel, get me a towel.”

He stood there for half a second, then grabbed a dish towel from the kitchen.

Vanessa began picking up pieces of glass.

“Mom, sit down,” Daniel said.

I held the towel against my head.

“I’m going to the hospital.”

Vanessa straightened.

“Margaret, come on. It was a wineglass.”

I looked at her.

“You threw it at me.”

“I threw it because you were being impossible. I wasn’t aiming for your head.”

That was Easter Sunday.

I was sixty-two years old.

And the argument had started because I would not give away two bedrooms and my garage in a house that belonged entirely to me.

Three months earlier, my son had made the request sound almost harmless.

“Just temporary, Mom.”

Daniel was thirty-five. He and Vanessa had been married for five years.

Vanessa’s parents, Frank and Linda Mercer, had been struggling with rent. Daniel explained that their lease was getting expensive and they needed somewhere to stay while they figured things out.

I had four bedrooms.

I lived alone.

Apparently, those two facts had become an invitation.

The first time Daniel asked, I said no.

The second time, Vanessa asked.

The third time, they came together.

By the fourth conversation, Frank needed space in my garage for his tools.

By the fifth, Linda had apparently decided which upstairs bedroom she preferred.

By the seventh, they were discussing my house as though the only remaining issue was convincing me to stop being unreasonable.

That Easter afternoon, Vanessa finally said it plainly.

“You have four bedrooms for one person.”

I put my fork down.

“And?”

“My parents are paying ridiculous rent for a two-bedroom apartment.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“You could solve it tomorrow.”

“No.”

Daniel rubbed his forehead.

“Mom, we’ve been over this.”

“Yes. Seven times.”

Vanessa leaned back.

“Family is supposed to help family.”

I looked at my son.

“Did you tell Frank and Linda they could move in?”

He didn’t answer.

That silence bothered me more than Vanessa’s tone.

“Daniel?”

“I told them we were discussing it.”

“There is nothing to discuss.”

Vanessa pushed her chair back.

“This is unbelievable.”

I stood too.

“You don’t get to volunteer my house.”

Then came the glass.

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in Thomas Reed’s SUV with a towel pressed against my head.

Thomas lived two houses down. He was a retired firefighter and had known Richard for years.

He had heard shouting.

Then he had seen me come outside.

“I already called 911,” he told me.

I turned toward him.

“You what?”

“Margaret, you’re bleeding from your head.”

That was when I noticed the ambulance turning onto my street.

Four Stitches and One Decision

The emergency room doctor gave me four stitches.

Daniel arrived while a nurse was cleaning dried blood from behind my ear.

Vanessa wasn’t with him.

He stood near the curtain with his hands in his pockets.

“How bad is it?”

“Four stitches.”

“Okay.”

I waited.

He looked toward the floor.

“Vanessa feels terrible.”

“Then why isn’t she here?”

“Because the police are at the house.”

I said nothing.

Daniel finally looked at me.

“Mom, Thomas called them.”

“I know.”

“This is getting bigger than it needs to be.”

I folded the bloody towel and set it on the plastic chair beside me.

“Your wife threw a glass at my head.”

“She lost her temper.”

“Yes.”

“You were both arguing.”

I stared at him.

“Did I throw anything at her?”

His jaw tightened.

“That’s not what I meant.”

A police officer arrived a few minutes later.

He asked Daniel to wait outside.

Then he asked me what happened.

I told him.

When he asked whether I wanted to cooperate with the complaint, I looked at the folded towel on the chair.

Six weeks earlier, I might have hesitated.

But six weeks earlier, I had already started learning how dangerous hesitation could become.

I had gone to see Rachel Kim, an attorney in Columbus, after Daniel asked me to put his name on my house.

That conversation had happened in my kitchen.

Daniel had been drinking coffee while I sorted tax papers.

“It would make everything easier later,” he said.

“What would?”

“Adding me to the deed.”

I stopped sorting.

“Why?”

“Probate. Taxes. All that stuff.”

“Rachel handled your father’s estate without any trouble.”

Daniel smiled.

“Mom, I’m your only child. Eventually the house is coming to me anyway.”

Eventually.

I remembered that word.

Two weeks earlier, Vanessa had brought me a power-of-attorney form.

Before that, Daniel had asked whether I wanted him added to one of my bank accounts in case I ever became sick.

Each request was small enough to explain.