Jessica had made pasta.
Barbara was outside after dinner.
Tyler slid the new agreement beside my plate.
Twelve hundred dollars.
I asked again why Barbara paid nothing.
Jessica said, “My mother is family.”
I asked Tyler what that made me.
He gave me the sentence that finally freed me.
“If you don’t like my rules, find somewhere else to live.”
“All right,” I said.
He thought I surrendered.
The next morning, I called a moving company.
They could come Friday.
I spent Monday through Thursday packing.
I did not hide it.
I simply started with things nobody noticed.
Books.
Winter clothes.
Bathroom items.
Photographs.
On Thursday afternoon, Jessica finally stood in my doorway.
“What are you doing?”
I folded a sweater into a box.
“Packing.”
“For what?”
“I’m moving.”
She laughed once.
Then she realized I wasn’t joking.
“Where?”
“My house.”
“What house?”
“The one I bought.”
Her mouth fell open.
“You bought a house?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I closed three weeks ago.”
She stared at me.
“You didn’t tell us.”
“No.”
“Why?”
I taped the box closed.
“I wasn’t aware I needed permission.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Tyler is going to lose his mind.”
“Why?”
“You bought a house without talking to him.”
“I’m sixty-eight years old.”
“He worries about you.”
I looked around the tiny room.
“Does he?”
Jessica’s face hardened.
“That’s unfair.”
“Maybe.”
She disappeared downstairs.
I heard her calling Tyler before she reached the bottom step.
He arrived home thirty minutes later.
I was carrying folded towels into a box when he walked into my room.
“You bought a house?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me?”
“Yes.”
“What were you thinking?”
That question irritated me more than I expected.
“I was thinking I needed somewhere to live.”
“You live here.”
“You told me to find somewhere else.”
“Mom, come on. You know I was angry.”
“I didn’t.”
“You took that literally?”
“You handed me a rent increase and told me to leave if I didn’t like it.”
He ran both hands over his face.
“Where is this place?”
I told him the neighborhood.
His eyebrows went up.
“That community isn’t cheap.”
“I can afford it.”
“How?”
I looked at him.
“What do you mean, how?”
“I mean, did you finance it?”
“No.”
“You paid cash?”
“Yes.”
Tyler sat down on the edge of my bed.
For a second, all the anger left his face.
“How much money do you have?”
There it was.
Not, Are you happy?
Not, Is the house safe?
Not, Do you need help moving?
How much money do you have?
I continued folding towels.
“Enough.”
“Mom.”
“Tyler.”
“I’m your son.”
“I know.”
“Why are you being secretive?”
“I’m private. That’s different.”
“You gave me twenty thousand dollars last year.”
“Yes.”
“I thought that was a big part of what you had from the condo.”
“It wasn’t.”
He stared at me.