Her friends at church found out. Of course they did. She’d told everybody she was moving into her son’s house. She’d shown them pictures of the den.
Now she was living in her daughter’s basement in Fairview next to a treadmill and a deep freezer, waiting for a one-bedroom apartment that smelled like new carpet.
That was her price.
She’d spent four years telling everyone she’d bought a home. In the end, she’d sold the only one she actually had.
Karen paid hers too. Three months of her mother sleeping under her family room. Three months of Phil being polite at breakfast in a way that wasn’t polite. Three months of Diane telling Karen how she loaded the dishwasher wrong.
Karen called me once, in November.
“How did you stand it?” she asked. “Four years. In your own kitchen.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I just didn’t say anything. That’s not the same as standing it.”
