There was the budget conversation I accidentally overheard in October of that second year, when Renee’s voice floated down the hallway from their bedroom.
“She eats our food, uses our utilities, and contributes what exactly?”
I had stood in the hallway for a long moment. Then I walked back to my room and closed the door very quietly behind me.
I want to be honest with you. I was not a saint. I questioned myself constantly.
Was I too present? Not present enough? Too old-fashioned? Did I take up too much space in a house that wasn’t mine?
I thought about Harold every single night, about our small house with the yellow kitchen, about how he used to leave cups of tea outside my bathroom door in the morning because he knew I hated speaking before 9:00.
I thought about what I had given up to be here, in this white-walled house where I was tolerated.
But I stayed because he was my son, because I believed family was family.
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