The first month after a son moves back in
By Delia Marchetti, Staff writer · · 2 min read
The boxes are in the garage. He said he would get to them. It has been nineteen days.
He is thirty-four. The lease in Columbus ended in August and the job ended in July, in that order, which he did not mention until the truck was in the driveway. His mother had already turned his old room into the office. The office is now the office with a bed in it.
Week one, she cooked. Every night. His favorites, the ones from high school. He ate them and said thank you and went downstairs. She told me she felt like she was running a bed and breakfast for one guest who did not want to talk to the owner.
Week two, she stopped cooking his favorites. She cooked what she and her husband eat, which is less, and earlier. He started coming up at six-thirty to find the kitchen done. He made himself eggs. She listened from the living room and did not go in.
"I wanted to go in," she said. "I didn't go in."
Week two also had the laundry. His went in with theirs on Wednesday because that is laundry day and she did not think about it, and when she folded it she found herself folding his shirts the way she folded them when he was twelve, in thirds, and she stopped, and refolded them in half, which is how she assumes a grown man folds, and left the pile on the office bed. He has not said anything about the shirts. She watches to see which way they are folded when they go back in the hamper. They are not folded at all.
Week three was the argument. It was about the thermostat. It was not about the thermostat. He keeps it at sixty-six. Her husband keeps it at seventy. Her husband said something about who pays the bill. The son said something about not asking to be here. She was in the kitchen and heard all of it and came out and said that nobody had asked to be anywhere, and that dinner was at six, and that she would like help with it, and left.
He helped with it. He has helped with it every night since. He cuts things badly.
Week four. The boxes are still in the garage. He has an interview Tuesday. He did not tell her about it; her husband did, who heard it from the son, who told him in the garage, where the two of them apparently talk now, among the boxes.
She said the house feels like it has two weather systems in it. She said she does not know if she wants him to get the job.
I asked what she meant. She said she knew exactly what she meant and was not going to say it, and would I like coffee.