My mother had managed alone for nineteen years, since my father died.
She had managed alone in the specific way of a woman who has made herself into a self-sufficient system, who has organized her daily life around what she can do without help so that the question of needing help does not arise.
I said: you’re staying with me.
She said: Sara.
I said: you’re staying with us.
She said: I don’t want to be in the way.
I said: you’re not in the way.
She said: Gabriel.
She said his name with the specific question in it of someone who has spent nine years in the presence of a man who made her feel like a guest rather than a member of the family.
I said: I’ve already talked to Gabriel.
This was technically true.
I had talked to Gabriel.
He had said he wasn’t thrilled but he hadn’t objected.
He had said: she’s not going to be here for long, right?
I had said: for as long as she needs to be.
He had said: I just need to know there’s an end date.
I had said: Gabriel, she has cancer. I don’t have an end date.
He had been quiet.
Then he had said: all right. Fine.
That was the conversation I had in mind when I told my mother I had talked to Gabriel.
The guest room on the first floor was the obvious choice.
