Betty’s fingers tightened around the chair arms.
“Packing for where?”
The woman with the baking dish looked confused.
“The residence near the park. Susan said you chose it.”
Jake closed his eyes.
Betty heard the tiny scrape of the dish against the woman’s coat button.
“I haven’t chosen a residence.”
Susan began speaking, but her father raised his hand.
“Let her finish.”
For the first time that afternoon, someone had made room for Betty’s voice.
“I was told to go upstairs because you needed my room. Before that, nobody asked where I wanted to live.”
Susan’s mother lowered the dish onto the hall table with both hands.
“You told us she was frightened of living independently,” she said to her daughter.
“She is seventy-eight.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Susan glanced at Jake. “We were trying to make practical arrangements.”
Her father’s cane trembled slightly against the floor.
“You said she wanted us here. You said having family in the house would ease her mind.”
Betty looked at the suitcase. A luggage tag had been carefully tied around its handle with blue string.
These people had packed believing they were welcome.
For a dangerous moment, the old habit rose inside her. She could smooth this over. Put the kettle on. Give them her bed. Make everyone comfortable before anyone had to sit with what had happened.
She gripped the chair until the impulse passed.
“You can have tea,” she said. “But you cannot move into my bedroom.”
Susan’s mother nodded, tears gathering without spilling.
“Of course we can’t.”
Susan stared at her.
“You’re taking her side?”
“I’m listening to her.”
Jake stepped forward at last.
“Your mother’s right.”
Susan rounded on him.
“You told me to handle it.”
The room seemed to contract.
Jake stared at her, and Betty understood that there was still something worse waiting.
Susan’s voice became thin and precise.
“You said she’d make us feel guilty if we asked. You said once my parents were here, she’d settle down.”
Betty’s son did not deny it.
Outside, a delivery truck rattled past. Betty could hear the loose metal of its tailgate, ordinary noise moving through an afternoon that no longer felt ordinary.
“Is that true?”
Jake nodded once.
