For the first time, Patricia hesitated.
I could practically see the decision happening behind her eyes.
She could admit she’d lied about me.
Or she could accept the challenge and prove she was every bit as perfect as she’d spent eight years pretending to be.
Finally, she raised her chin.
“Fine. Noon.”
I smiled.
She still didn’t know what losing would cost her.
The livestream began at noon the following day.
I moved through my kitchen while Patricia appeared in a small square beside me on the screen.
“Fridge first,” someone commented.
I opened mine and began wiping the shelves.
Patricia yanked open her refrigerator.
A jar rolled out and shattered.
Her kitchen looked considerably cleaner than it had during our early-morning visit.
Clearly, Patricia had practiced.
Her kitchen apparently hadn’t cooperated.
***’Strong start, Patricia 😂.’***
She forced a smile.
“Accidents happen.”
Then she knocked over a carton of milk.
It spilled across the shelf and soaked her socks.
***’Fridge: 2. Patricia: 0.’***
I glanced at my spotless shelf.
“Should I give you a minute to catch up?”
Patricia’s expression answered for her.
More comments appeared.
***’Next task!’***
***’Top of the fridge!’***
Patricia reached upward and dragged two fingers across the surface.
They came back gray.
***’OMG, SHE FOUND A NEW SPECIES OF DUST.’***
Her smile vanished.
Next came the cabinets.
Patricia opened one too quickly and three plastic containers fell onto the counter.
***’THE CABINET IS FIGHTING BACK.’***
Meanwhile, I’d already completed my cabinets and started on the laundry.
By the time someone suggested folding a fitted sheet, Patricia looked personally betrayed by the internet.
Then someone asked us to wipe our range hoods.
Mine took only seconds.
Patricia scrubbed hers twice, yet the cloth still came away brown with grease.
I raised my clean cloth and laughed.
“Patricia, should I pretend I didn’t see that?”
She didn’t laugh.
That was when Patricia finally stopped performing.
Her bright Facebook smile disappeared.
So did the little speeches about how things were supposed to be done.
She simply stood there holding the dirty cloth as comments rushed across the screen.
“I don’t know why everyone’s ganging up on me,” she said.
But she didn’t sound angry anymore.
I was ready to remind her that public humiliation had been her idea.
Then I noticed her hand trembling.
“Patricia,” I said. “Forget the comments. Just finish the task.”
She stared at me through the screen.
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
Patricia slowly lowered herself onto the kitchen floor.
“I mean I can’t do any of it, Claire. I never could.”
The comments suddenly stopped.
“You and Nathan have this… this life. Your house, your jobs, dinner on the table. You make all of it look so easy.”
She wiped her face.
“Every time I came to your house, I looked for something wrong. Dust. Dinner. Laundry. Anything. Because if I could find something you were failing at, I didn’t have to feel so ashamed of what I was failing at here.”
I stared at her.
“You were looking for reasons to judge me?”
“I was looking for reasons not to judge myself.”
She looked around her kitchen.
“And when I saw you in bed that day… I finally had something I could use against you. So I did.”
Suddenly, eight years of tiny hums, inspections, corrections, and impossible expectations made sense.
They had never really been about my home.
They were about hers.
I stared at Patricia’s image on the screen.
Three days earlier, I’d wanted her humiliated.
Ten minutes earlier, I’d wanted to beat her at her own game.
Now I’d won.
And suddenly I didn’t care about winning anymore.
“Nathan,” I said. “End the stream.”
Patricia looked up.
“Claire…”
“We’re done.”
An hour later, Nathan and I stood outside Patricia’s house again.
This time, we knocked.
Nathan quietly removed our emergency key from Patricia’s key ring.
“You come over when you’re invited,” he said. “Not before.”
She nodded.
She looked smaller somehow.
Tired.
Then she lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Claire.”
I waited.
Patricia had apologized before—for being “too honest,” for “hurting my feelings,” for things that somehow still became my fault by the end.
This time, she added nothing.
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s a start.”
On the drive home, Nathan reached over and took my hand.
“You okay?”
I thought about Patricia’s little hum and all the years I’d spent trying to avoid hearing it.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m done trying to impress your mother.”
Nathan smiled.
“Good.”
And for once, that was enough.
