There is something I notice, in myself, about this room that I didn’t notice before. Before, when I thought about the spare room, I thought about it neutrally — it was a room, it was available, it served its function when needed. Now, when I walk past it or put something in it or notice it exists, I feel something. Not exactly gratitude, which seems like a strange emotion about a room in one’s own house. Maybe something closer to recognition: this room is mine. I chose what it’s used for. The fact of it being what it is, rather than what someone else planned for it without asking, is the result of something I did.
That is small and it is also not small.
My office is my office. The light is still good on Monday mornings. I am in it by eight-thirty on the days I work from home, and by five-thirty I’m done, and nobody’s measuring the room or suggesting that maybe the second monitor could go in the corner so there’d be room for a dresser.
That’s the ground-level outcome. That’s what all of it was for.
## The Loan Repayment at Month Five
Adam made his second loan payment in March, and it was larger than the first.
He didn’t tell me about it — he told my parents, as was appropriate, since the loan was between him and them. My mother mentioned it on a Sunday visit, not as a report but as something she’d been pleased about. ‘He’s really trying,’ she said. ‘I think it surprised Paul a little.’