John and Robin sat across their kitchen table. John cradled a cup of coffee as if its heat might cauterize what hurt him.
“She can’t be on her own anymore,” he said. “Mike is useless.”
There were only two options left for the care of Rose. Robin would’ve been within her rights to lobby for the less intrusive one, but John wasn’t surprised when she didn’t.
“We’ll fix up the spare room,” she said without hesitation. “Your job will allow you to be here for her during the day—assuming you keep your job. We can all work with her at night.”
John studied his wife, grateful for the compassion she had for his mother.
“This isn’t a very big house,” he pointed out.
“She isn’t a very big woman.”
“Things would really change around here,” he continued, “for all of us. Christ, we’re just heading into the worst of it with Katie. Can we really deal with her and Mom at the same time?”
“It would do our daughter good to be around someone with real problems, instead of the self-pitying drama she and her mopey little friends wallow in,” Robin said, finishing her coffee and then standing to get more. “Maybe she’ll start seeing them for what they are.”
John smiled at her gruff wisdom and watched her at the coffeemaker. He waited until she returned with the pot and refilled his cup.
“You and me aren’t a hundred percent,” he said quietly, conceding the truth that had been living with them for too long. “Moving my mother in here isn’t going to help with our … closeness issues.”
“You think?” she drawled sarcastically. He smiled, but then she undercut the lightness with blunt reality.
“It won’t be forever,” she said. “She’s changing fast, John. It’s coming fast.”
He knew this, but despaired at hearing it.
“I want to have her here, for as long as we can responsibly take care of her,” Robin continued. “But there’s going to come a time when she’s going to have to go where she can be safe. We need to start looking into that now, because a decent place will be expensive and her long-term plan isn’t going to cover all of it.”
John’s insides constricted at the problems yet to come. Robin saw this and took his hand.
“We’ll deal with that when it comes. For now, I want you to be here for her.”
Robin continued. “I’ve watched how you’ve thrown yourself into caring for your father, even when there was nothing you could do for him. You still have time with your mom. While she still can, I want her to know how lucky she is to have you looking out for her.”
Tears teased their way into his eyes and he didn’t bother to push back at them. “I love you,” he told her.
“I know you do,” she said. “I love you, too.”
He swabbed at the emotion pooled in his eyes and tickling his nose, then sighed as he sized up their kitchen.
“This really is a small house,” he said.
“It’s fine.”
“You know,” he said tentatively. “That old house of hers has a lot of room.”
“We are not moving into your mother’s house.”
“Okay,” he said, surrendering quickly and wisely. She wasn’t convinced.
“For a lot of reasons,” she said firmly, “I am not moving into that house.”
“Okay.”
She bore down: “If we moved into that house, it would come with a fully installed Mike.”
“Understood.”
“I am only so wonderful.”