My Mil Slapped Me For Choosing My Dying Mother Over A Thanksgiving Turkey. My Husband Watched And Did Nothing. I Just Cut The Power And Canceled Their Feast, So Why Do I Feel Like The Villain?

Thanksgiving Morning

On Thanksgiving morning, a light drizzle fell over Queens. Eleanor had been on edge since 4:00 a.m. She couldn’t sleep, checking her phone every 30 minutes, but the shopping app screen displayed only a single line of gray text: Your order has been cancelled.

She couldn’t believe it. It had to be a system error, she thought. She called the customer service center. After 20 minutes of navigating an automated voice menu, she finally connected with an agent.

“Ma’am, the order placed by Emily Davis was officially cancelled on November 21st at 11:47 p.m. The refund is being processed to her account. Is there anything else I can help you with?” The agent’s voice was polite and robotic.

Eleanor hung up the phone, her hands shaking.

“She really did it,” she muttered. “That crazy bitch. How could she? How could she do this to me?”

Kevin emerged from the bedroom, dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t slept well either. Emily’s last message had been eating away at his nerves like a ticking time bomb.

“Mom, what do we do?” he asked, his voice filled with panic. He looked like a child who had done something wrong and was waiting for his mother’s punishment.

Eleanor whipped her head around to glare at her son. “What do we do? You’re asking me? You can’t even control your own wife and now you’re asking me what to do?”

Kevin flinched. “I tried calling her. She’s not picking up.”

“Then keep calling until she does! And when she answers, you tell her to reinstate that order immediately! Right now!”

“But the agent said it’s already been cancelled and refunded.”

“Then tell her to order it again!” Eleanor’s scream tore through the living room. “It’s 8:00. The relatives will be here by 9:00. What are we going to serve them? Should I just stand at the door empty-handed and bow and say ‘I’m sorry’?”

Kevin lowered his head, swiping aimlessly at his phone screen. He opened a food delivery app trying to find some last-minute Thanksgiving catering, but it was a holiday. Most places were closed. The few that were open showed an estimated delivery time of 2:00 p.m.

“2:00 p.m.,” he mumbled. “That’s so late.”

“Late? If it’s late, then go out and buy it! Go to the supermarket and buy it! Go to a market, anywhere!” Eleanor grabbed a throw pillow from the sofa and hurled it at him. “Are you a corpse? Why are you just standing there?”

The pillow hit Kevin in the shoulder and he stumbled. His face turned beet red with a mixture of shame and anger.

“The supermarkets aren’t even open yet! I have to wait until they open. Besides, I have a tea time with a client today.”

Eleanor froze. The look in her eyes as she stared at her son could have started a fire.

“What did you say?”

Realizing his mistake, Kevin quickly backtracked. “No, I mean I can cancel it. I’ll cancel it right now.”

Before Eleanor could unleash another tirade, the doorbell rang. Ding-dong. The sound cut sharply through the quiet living room. Eleanor and Kevin looked at each other. The same terror was reflected in both their eyes. The doorbell rang again. Ding-dong, ding-dong.

“Who is it?” Kevin’s voice trembled.

Eleanor took a deep breath, smoothing her hair and clothes. She erased the demonic expression from her face and put on the mask of a benevolent matriarch. Curving her lips into a smile and softening her eyes, she walked to the front door and opened it.

Three people stood outside. In the front was a man in his late 70s dressed in a sharp tweed blazer. His hair was white and the wrinkles on his face were as deep as if they’d been carved with a knife. This was the patriarch of the Davis family, Uncle Richard. He was the most senior and respected member of the family and his word was law. Behind him stood his wife and their eldest son.

“Richard!” Eleanor chirped, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “You’re here already! Welcome, welcome! Please come in.”

Uncle Richard entered without changing his expression. His gaze swept across the living room as sharp as a razor blade. The room was empty. There was no dining table set, no smell of cooking food, no pies, no decorations. There wasn’t even a tray of simple refreshments for the guests.

“Where is the dinner table?” His voice was low and commanding.

Eleanor’s smile froze on her face as if it had been glued there. “Oh, well, Richard, we’re just getting it ready.”

“Getting it ready?” Uncle Richard’s eyebrow twitched. “Dinner is at 10:00. It’s 8:20 now. I asked you where the table is.”

Eleanor’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Her mind went completely blank. She needed an excuse, but her brain felt like it had shut down. She just stood there gaping like a fish out of water.

“Uncle Richard,” Kevin scurried out from the living room, trying to salvage the situation. “It’s, uh, my wife. Her mother is in the hospital so she had to go to her parents. She’s usually in charge of the food, so… so…”

Uncle Richard cut him off. “If she’s not here, do you not have hands? Do you not have feet? Is she the only person in this house?”

Kevin’s face flushed a deep purple-red. “We… We were just…”

“I’m asking you.” Uncle Richard took a step forward, cornering Kevin. “Where is the food for our family dinner?”

“It… It was cancelled. Emily, she cancelled it.”

Uncle Richard’s eyes grew cold as ice. He slowly turned his head to look at Eleanor.

“What kind of lesson have you been teaching your daughter-in-law?”

Eleanor’s face turned as white as a sheet. “Richard, it’s that Emily… she’s…”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses.” Uncle Richard’s voice dropped like a cold stone. “This dinner is about honoring our family. It’s the one day a year we all come together, and this is the state of the head of the Davis family household? This is a disgrace.”

Eleanor’s lips trembled. She wanted to blame Emily, but under Uncle Richard’s steely gaze, she couldn’t even move her mouth.

“Richard…”

“And another thing,” Uncle Richard continued. “Why is this house so dark? Why are the lights off?”

Eleanor paused. She reached out and flipped the wall switch. Click. Nothing happened. She flipped it again. Click. Still dark.

“What are you doing?” Irritation began to creep into Uncle Richard’s voice.

Eleanor’s heart plummeted. She ran to the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door. The light inside was off. There was no humming sound from the motor. Ice in the freezer was melting, dripping water onto the floor. She checked the television, the microwave, the air conditioner—all of them were dead. It was a power outage. No, not just an outage. The power had been cut off.

“Mom!” Kevin’s frantic voice came from the living room. “It was Emily! That woman canceled the auto payment for the electric bill! It was cut off for non-payment!”

Eleanor stood in the middle of the kitchen, a cold chill running down her spine. The full picture was finally coming into focus. Her obedient, quiet daughter-in-law, the free housekeeper who did everything she was told, the meek woman who didn’t make a peep even when she was slapped—she had finally fought back, and she had done it at the most critical moment, in the most brutal way possible.

“Eleanor!” Uncle Richard’s roar thundered from the other room. “Get in here!”

Eleanor’s legs felt like jelly. She grabbed the refrigerator door for support and staggered back into the living room. Her face was ashen, her lips drained of all color.

Uncle Richard was standing in the middle of the living room. Behind him, her other brother-in-law, his wife, and a few more distant relatives had arrived. They were all dressed in their holiday best, their faces expectant, but now that expectation was turning into contempt and ridicule.

“Is this the Davis family Thanksgiving?” Uncle Richard asked, his voice like ice, gesturing to the empty room. “No table, no food, and the power is out?”

“Richard, please let me explain…”

“Explain?” Uncle Richard cut her off. “What is there to explain? That your daughter-in-law decided to screw you over? Then let me ask you this: what did you do to make her so desperate? How must you have treated her for things to come to this?”

Eleanor’s face twisted in a grimace. She wanted to scream, “She’s crazy!” but the words got stuck in her throat. Uncle Richard’s gaze was too sharp; his clouded elderly eyes seemed to see through every lie.

“That’s enough.” Uncle Richard turned to the other relatives. “Today’s dinner is cancelled. Everyone please go home.”

“Just leave like this?” someone asked.

“What else would you have us do?” Uncle Richard retorted coldly. “Offer a prayer to the empty air?”

Eleanor’s face burned with humiliation. It felt like an invisible hand had just slapped her a hundred times harder than she had ever slapped Emily.

“Uncle Richard! I… I’ll go buy something!” Kevin pushed through the crowd shouting desperately. “I’ll go to the store right now!”

Uncle Richard snorted. “And what will you buy it with? A maxed-out credit card?”

Kevin froze.

“Did you think I didn’t know?” Uncle Richard’s voice grew even lower. “Your salary is $3,000 a month, but you have $50,000 in credit card debt. Your mother’s spa treatments, your bar tabs, even the maintenance on this apartment—it’s all been paid for with your mother-in-law’s money, hasn’t it? And now that your wife’s mother is lying in a hospital bed and the money has been cut off, you don’t even have enough cash to buy a Thanksgiving turkey, do you?”

Kevin’s face cycled through shades of red and purple. He had never dreamed that Uncle Richard knew the details of his financial situation so intimately. The pathetic reality he had tried so hard to hide, the incompetence he refused to admit, was now laid bare for everyone to see.

“Enough.” Uncle Richard held up a hand. “I will inform the rest of the family about what happened today. From now on, I will be in charge of our family gatherings. You two are no longer welcome.”

With that, the old man turned and walked out the front door without a backward glance. The other relatives, after a moment of hesitation, followed him out like a receding tide. There were whispers, clicks of the tongue, and someone even took out a phone to sneak a picture. Eleanor stood in the middle of the living room watching them disappear one by one. She tried to open her mouth, but her throat was so tight that not even a croak came out.

As the last person left, they turned and gave Eleanor one final look. It wasn’t pity in their eyes; it was a strange sort of satisfaction. A look that said, “You finally got what you deserved.” The cold gaze of someone witnessing karma in action.

Click. The front door shut. Only Eleanor and Kevin were left in the living room. The air was heavy and an unspeakable sense of defeat pressed down on the house. From the kitchen, the refrigerator gurgled as the last of the ice melted and dripped to the bottom.

Eleanor slowly turned her head to look at Kevin. The panic from moments ago was gone, replaced by a dark, simmering hatred.

“Call her,” she said, biting off each word. “Tell that bitch to get back here now.”

With a trembling hand, Kevin pulled out his phone and dialed Emily’s number. A mechanical voice filled the empty, mocking silence of the living room:

“The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try again.“