We sat at the kitchen table, the three of us.
Daniel said: “Mom, I need to talk to you about the next steps. Maya and I have talked, and we need to set a real timeline.”
Patricia looked between us. She understood what was coming.
“We’d like you to commit to a move-out date,” he said. “We’re thinking six weeks from today. That gives you through mid-November, which is enough time to finalize something.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then: “Six weeks.”
“We know it feels abrupt. But it’s been eleven weeks, and Maya and I need to be planning for what comes next.”
“I’ve been looking,” she said. The tone was even but underneath it was a hurt that was real.
“I know,” Daniel said. “And we want to help you with the search in this time. If there are specific things that aren’t working about the places you’ve seen, we can talk through them. But we need a committed date.”
“Maya.” She looked at me. “Is this what you want?”
I had prepared for this redirection. “This is what Daniel and I have decided together. Yes.”
“I’ve tried to be helpful here. I’ve cooked, I’ve –“
“You have been helpful,” I said. “That’s true and it’s real. It’s also a different question from how long this was supposed to be.”
“Four weeks was never –” She stopped. Restarted. “It was just meant to be an estimate. I didn’t know things would take this long.”
“We understand that,” Daniel said. “But we need to set the date now. November fifteenth.”