The different thing I was afraid of was Daniel choosing his mother over me in the specific way of saying: she is here and she is staying and I need you to accept that.
He had not said that. He had not come close to saying it. The fear was mine and it was unfounded and it still operated, that week and the one after, as a reason not to press.
What I Had and Had Not Agreed To
Lena came over for dinner in week eleven, a Tuesday when Patricia was at her book club. I had not planned to make the dinner a conversation about the situation but it became one almost immediately, because Lena is someone who asks questions that are the precise shape of the thing you’ve been thinking about.
“How’s it going with the mom-in-law?” she asked.
I told her. Not the full inventory — Lena had heard pieces of it over the weeks in the way you update a friend on an ongoing situation — but the latest: the failed Sunday conversation, the non-answer about timing, the ongoing rental search that had been ongoing for eleven weeks.
Lena listened without interrupting, which is the thing that makes her useful.
Then she said: “What did you actually agree to?”
I said four weeks.
She said: “Do you have that in writing anywhere? A text or email?”
I thought about it. Daniel had asked about the visit over text. I had said yes in a text. The four-week estimate had been in the text conversation.