I took my dear friend Eleanor into my home after her divorce, and as the years slipped by I slowly found myself reduced to the role of a housemaid in my own house.
There are friendships that outlast everything weddings, breakups, births, funerals. Eleanor and I had known each other for more than three decades. We had sat sidebyside for school exams, shared our first heartbreaks, and when she moved to Manchester she always came back to London, where I could be myself without pretense.
So when one night she called me, voice shattered and words barely a whisper, I have nowhere to go, I did not hesitate. I said, Come. There is always a room for you here.
The early days felt like our youth again long talks over tea, laughter, the shuffle of old memories. After my husband died, the house seemed unbearably quiet, and having Eleanor there oddly soothed the emptiness. I tried to look after her: I cooked, gave her my best bedroom, bought fresh towels so she would feel comfortable. She promised to stay a few weeks while she got her bearings.
One month passed, then another. She stopped looking for a flat, stopped sending out applications, stopped getting up at sunrise Im reclaiming the sleep I missed for years, she would say. She drifted about the house in a dressing gown, claimed the sofa, and asked, Did you buy the fruitflavoured yoghurt? I love that one, as if it were the most natural request.
Gradually I sensed myself fading. I would return from work to find her perched in the kitchen, tea in hand, the morning paper spread before her. When I asked her to make a simple soup, she chuckled, Youre better at it than I ever was.
It was always I who washed the dishes, bought the groceries, stocked the fridge with everything Eleanor liked, filled the bathroom with her cosmetics, and kept the telly tuned to her serial dramas.
One afternoon I invited another friend, Clara, over for coffee. Eleanor frowned and said she didnt feel comfortable with strangers in her space. She even shooed my cat away, declaring an allergy.
For a long while I excused her behaviour, telling myself she was still hurting from the divorce, that she was disoriented and needed to be tolerated. But the day she began rearranging the furniture, insisting this is how it should be, I realised a line had been crossed.
The hardest moment came when she asked me, after a days work, to collect her clothes from the dry cleaner and pick up groceries because I dont have the strength to go out. I arrived, arms trembling with the bags, and she asked, Did you get the right detergent? Dont mix them up. Something inside me snapped.
For the first time in years I spoke firm: We need to talk. This cannot go on. This is my house, and you must start thinking about where youll move.
At first she stared, then bristled, accusing me of not understanding her and of only thinking of myself. It was painful, but I knew that if I did not set boundaries now, I would lose my own sense of self.
She left a few days later, slamming the door behind her. Guilt lingered, as if I had betrayed a sisterinspirit, but slowly the house began to breathe again. I felt once more that the rooms were mine, the life was mine, the rules were mine.
Months later a brief text arrived: Sorry. I was completely lost then. Thank you for helping, even if I didnt appreciate it. I replied wishing her the best and thought, sometimes the hardest thing is to say no to someone you care for. Yet if you wait too long, you risk losing something far more precious: yourself.
