She and I ended up doing the dishes together after Thanksgiving dinner, which is where the real conversations happen at family gatherings. Adam was half-asleep on the couch. My father was watching football. My mother and Leah were at the table finishing the wine.
‘Adam told me what happened,’ Maya said, rinsing a serving bowl. ‘With the house and everything.’
‘What’s his version?’ I asked.
‘That he messed up,’ she said. ‘That he should have thought about where your parents were going to live before he signed the lease. That he was so focused on the business he didn’t look up enough to see the whole picture.’
I dried the bowl. ‘That’s accurate,’ I said.
‘He said you handled it really well,’ she said.
‘I don’t know if I handled it well,’ I said. ‘I handled it better than I might have. I said what needed to be said. I didn’t blow everything up over it.’
‘He also said you told him to pay the deposit,’ she said. ‘That that was your idea.’
‘I suggested it,’ I said. ‘He made the choice.’
‘He said it helped him feel like he was doing the right thing,’ she said. ‘Instead of just being the person the money went to.’
I thought about that. There’s a version of Adam in which he’s simply the beneficiary — the recipient of resources and the source of logistical complications, present but not accountable. The version who paid the deposit was a different Adam — one who saw a way to take some responsibility and took it. I hadn’t known he would, when I’d raised it. I’d suggested it because it was the right thing to do and because I thought he might be capable of it.