Disruption
“Mom, do you remember Danielle?”
Tasha always expected me to remember every friend and acquaintance she had met over her thirty-two years, even ones I had never actually met in person. And I always felt that I disappointed her if I couldn’t remember, as if I had failed to perform my motherly duty.
“Danielle ... you mean ... the Danielle ... from school?” I was faking it. Buying time.
“Yeah, we used to hang out in high school. She’s the one whose father died in that weird accident.”
That detail jogged my memory. “Right, right. That was so sad.”
“Yeah. So, anyway, she’s been living in New York making jewelry. Now she’s back in town.”
“Wonderful. Are you going to see her?”
“I did. She’s moving back here. She broke up with her boyfriend. And that was the only thing keeping her in New York. She’s looking for a place to stay ... temporarily ... until she can find something affordable.”
The warning sirens were blaring. First of all, there was nothing affordable in the Bay Area. And second, I knew what was coming next.
“Could she stay with you ... just for a while?”
There was a long silence while I contemplated my answer. I was hardly looking for a roommate at the age of sixty-three. And I knew that “a while” could mean a long time. On the other hand, I didn’t want to appear to be mean and uncaring. Sensing my hesitation, Tasha added, “She’ll pay rent. She just can’t afford that much. And she’s a good cook ... vegan mostly.”
Raising the topic of food preparation only increased my anxiety. How would we handle meals? Would we each buy food separately and make separate meals? I didn’t want the complication. One of the few pleasures of growing old is that life becomes less complicated. That little pleasure would be stolen from me.
I didn’t even know this young woman. How cooperative would she be? Was she messy? Did she like to listen to loud music? Would she want to have boyfriends over and stay up late?
“Please, Mom. She really needs some help. She’s kind of depressed.”
My daughter—this powerful, generous woman whom I love—was asking for a favor. It was hard to refuse. And, since my husband’s death some months ago, I was living alone in a three-bedroom house with plenty of room for a “temporary” guest. I had no excuse. So, I did what I often do in situations like this. I offered a cowardly compromise.
“Okay, Danielle can stay here for a week. But after that she’ll need to find someplace else. I’m serious.” By adding “I’m serious” as an addendum, I was clearly trying to convince myself more than Tasha.
A troubling memory came back to me. As a young girl, ten or eleven years old, Tasha had the habit of bringing home kittens. We let her keep the first one, a black cat whom she cleverly named Purrsia. We forbade her from bringing home any more kittens. She brought home two more. We kept them. What else could we do? They were so cute, and they needed a home. I feared that Danielle would be the new kitten.
