The first was not having the direct conversation, at any point in nine years, about what it meant that the house was mine, what it meant for how decisions about the house were made, and what I expected when those decisions were being made.
I had assumed the assumption.
That is the specific failure that produced the Thursday.
The text arrived at 4:17.
Mom’s moving in. It’s already decided.
I read it twice.
The reading it twice was the brain doing the thing I mentioned at the beginning, giving the person you love one free chance to have typed something stupid by accident. Then I called him.
He answered on the fourth ring.
I said: what does already decided mean?
He said his mother needed somewhere to stay.
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