“It won’t be sitting there. I’ll be in it.”
“Right, but in her frame it’s going to look like: room with one person in it occasionally, versus the living situation of two people who need places to put their things.”
I had not thought about it that way, but once Leah said it, I could see exactly the conversation she was describing — my mother, well-intentioned, opening the office door to “just have a look,” the suggestion offered carefully that maybe if I reorganized, maybe if the printer moved to the corner of the guest room, maybe if I worked on the kitchen table on Tuesdays at least.
“I need to be specific in advance,” I said.
“Very specific,” Leah said. “Not ‘I need my office.’ More like: ‘This room is not available under any circumstances while I use it for work, and the days I use it for work are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from eight-thirty to five-thirty, and on those days I am unavailable the same way I would be if I were in an office building.'”
“That sounds aggressive.”
“That sounds like a job description,” she said. “There’s nothing aggressive about having a job.”
## The Alternatives List
After the family meeting, I sat down and made a list. Not of grievances — I was trying to stay on the productive side of this, and a grievance list wasn’t going to help anyone — but of alternatives. Actual housing options that existed and that my parents could pursue if they chose to.