That was usually me.
There was a period around year three when I applied for a full-time bookkeeping position at a firm I’d wanted to work for since I was in school. I got to the final round of interviews. I did well. I felt, for the first time in a while, like I was doing something for myself.
The offer letter came on a Wednesday. The job was full-time, in-office, forty minutes away by highway.
I turned it down on Thursday.
I didn’t tell my mother why. I told her the offer “hadn’t worked out.” I told myself it was fine, I wasn’t defined by a job, I had other options. I kept the offer letter in the folder I’d started keeping for household records. I don’t know exactly why I kept it. Maybe because I needed proof, at least for myself, that I had been there, that the choice had been real.
Daniel came to visit that summer. He stayed for four days. He was attentive and helpful and he fixed a door hinge that had been bothering Mom for a month. He took her to her Wednesday doctor appointment and came back in what I can only describe as a fundamentally altered state.
“I didn’t know it had gotten this serious,” he said. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a beer, and the way he said it was genuine. He was surprised.
“I’ve told you,” I said.
“I know. I know you have. It hits different when you’re actually here.”