At 2:17 on Christmas afternoon, I was sitting at my mother-in-law’s kitchen table with a broken leg, peeling the twenty-third potato while my husband drank bourbon in the next room.

Dinner for twelve was scheduled for six.

The turkey was in the oven. The green beans still needed trimming. Two bags of carrots sat unopened beside a bowl of onions, and a saucepan of cranberries had boiled over because I couldn’t reach the stove quickly enough when I heard it sputter.

My right leg was wrapped in a fiberglass cast from my toes to just below my knee. I had propped it on a dining chair, but the chair was several inches too low. My toes had swollen until the skin looked polished. Every few minutes, a hot pulse traveled from my ankle into my calf.

My orthopedic specialist had used the words strictly non-weight-bearing.

My husband, Derek, had translated that into you can still cook if you stay seated.

“Can you bring me my medication?” I called.

The bottle was on the counter, six feet away. My crutches were leaning against the refrigerator, where Derek had put them after complaining that somebody was going to trip over them.

The television volume dipped. I heard Derek laugh at something his brother said, then the volume rose again.

“Derek?”

He appeared in the doorway nearly a minute later, wearing the green cashmere sweater his mother had bought him. He had a bourbon glass in one hand and a bowl of mixed nuts in the other.

“What?”

“My medication. And could you put some ice in a bag? My toes are getting numb.”

He looked at the cutting board, then at the saucepan on the stove.

“You’re behind.”

“I know. That’s why I asked you to help.”

“I’ve been helping. I carried in all the wine.”

“Your mother ordered the wine. You moved it from her front porch to the dining room.”

His mouth tightened. We had been married for four years, and I knew that expression. It meant I had corrected him in a way he considered disrespectful.

“You’ve been sitting down all day, Hannah. I don’t understand why you’re acting like this is impossible.”

“My doctor said I’m supposed to keep my leg elevated. He said no standing except when absolutely necessary.”

“You don’t need your leg to peel potatoes.”

“I need it to get from this table to the stove.”

“Then call me when you need something instead of trying to do everything yourself and making me the bad guy.”

I stared at him. “I just called you.”

For a second, neither of us spoke.

Then he set my pill bottle on the table hard enough to make it rattle. He didn’t bring water or ice.

“Mom has waited all year for this dinner,” he said. “Can we please get through one day without you turning everything into a crisis?”

He went back to the living room.

I had spent years wondering whether Derek’s sentences sounded as cruel to other people as they did to me. He rarely shouted. He preferred a tired, reasonable voice that made me feel like an unreliable witness to my own life.

When we first got married, I mistook that voice for patience.

That afternoon, I swallowed the pill with lukewarm water from a measuring cup because it was the only liquid within reach.

At 2:35, my mother-in-law, Marilyn, swept into the kitchen. She wore cream slacks, a red silk blouse, and the diamond bracelet Derek and I had supposedly been unable to afford for her sixtieth birthday. I had later found the $1,800 charge on our joint credit card.

Marilyn looked at the vegetable peels on the table.

“You’re making a mess.”

“I’ll clean it when I’m done.”

Her eyes moved to my elevated leg. “That chair belongs in the dining room.”

“I need to keep my foot up.”

“Can’t you use a box?”

“What box?”

She exhaled as if I had asked her to construct one. Then she pulled the chair away, forcing me to grab my cast with both hands before my heel dropped.

“Marilyn—”

She slid a cardboard case of canned sparkling water under my foot. It was half the height of the chair. Pain pressed into my ankle as blood rushed downward.

“There,” she said. “Now everyone has what they need.”

Everyone except me.

On the other side of the kitchen doorway, her new dining room rug glowed beneath the chandelier. It was thick white wool with a pale silver border. Marilyn had told us three times that it cost $3,500 and that the furniture store had given her “twelve months same as cash,” as if financing it made the purchase more impressive.

She followed my eyes.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? The salesperson said it will hold its value if it’s professionally cleaned.”

“It’s very white for a room where twelve people are about to eat.”

She gave me a thin smile. “Then we’ll all have to be careful.”

At three o’clock, she called from the living room to ask when the appetizers would be ready.

I looked at the rows of uncooked food, at my swelling toes, and at the clock moving faster than my hands could.

“I can’t finish all of this alone,” I called back.

The television volume went silent.

Marilyn appeared in the doorway again, this time with Derek behind her.

“You have three hours,” she said. “That should be plenty of time for someone who’s been sitting around all week.”

Derek didn’t defend me.

He rested one shoulder against the doorframe and waited for me to apologize.