I had liked Patricia during those visits. I want to be clear about this because it matters to understanding how the later months felt: she was not a person I had disliked before proximity. She was someone I had gotten along with genuinely, who became someone different — or rather who became the same person in a different role, a role she occupied in a way that created problems.
The difference between a guest and a household authority is not always visible until it has had time to compound.
What Made It Worse, Cumulatively
I have mentioned some of the incidents. The spice cabinet. The work call. Carl’s weekend visit. Let me add a few more because the cumulative picture is the actual picture, and the individual incidents, each of which might be survivable in isolation, together described a pattern that was not about any one cabinet or one knock on a door.
The grocery question during the work call was October. In September there had been something smaller: Patricia had called a plumber.
Our bathroom sink had been slow-draining for about two weeks. It was on my mental list of things to address, the kind of background item that exists on the mental list of homeowners alongside changing the furnace filter and checking the smoke detectors. I was going to call someone that weekend.
Patricia called someone Tuesday afternoon. The plumber came Wednesday. He fixed the drain. Patricia paid him, which I learned after and attempted to reimburse, and she waved it off and said it was nothing.