The Realtor Who Put Down Her Camera

The weeks before

I will say this for him, and I want it said plainly. Those first weeks, Garrett was good to me.

He set up the walker by my bed every night. He put a plastic chair in the shower and a raised seat on the toilet, and he did not make me feel ashamed about either one.

He drove me to therapy three days a week until Ada said she could take the Tuesday and Thursday runs, and then he drove the Mondays. He cooked supper most nights. Mostly chili, but it was hot.

But there were things. There were small things that I set aside because I was tired and sore and grateful to have somebody in the house.

He started picking up the mail before I could get to it. He said it was so I would not have to go down the driveway. That made sense, after what happened.

He took a lot of phone calls out in the garage. He would come back in with his jaw tight and say it was work, or the kids’ mother.

He started saying things like, “You know, Mom, there are some real nice places over by the hospital. Senior apartments. Everything on one floor. Somebody checks on you every day.”

I said, “I have everything on one floor. And Ada checks on me every day, whether I want her to or not.”

He said, “Ada’s seventy-four.”

I said, “Ada could still outrun you to the mailbox.”

He laughed at that. He did not bring it up again for a week. Then he brought it up again, and the time after that he had a brochure.

I put the brochure in the drawer under the phone, with the church directory and the takeout menus. I thought that was the end of it. I thought my son had heard me.

The kitchen

So there I was on the tenth of March, a Tuesday, with Kim Tuttle in her black blazer holding a camera, and my son by the refrigerator with his arms crossed, and March light coming through the window over the sink.

The light was pale and clean the way it gets in March, before anything is green yet. It lay across the table Ray built from the oak that came down in the ’85 ice storm.

“Garrett,” I said. “Did you list this house?”

He uncrossed his arms and then crossed them again. “Mom, sit down. You shouldn’t be standing that long. Let’s talk about it sitting down.”

“I am going to sit down,” I said. “But I asked you a question first, and I would like an answer to it while I’m still standing in my own kitchen.”

He took a breath. “Yes. I signed a listing agreement with Kim on Friday. Two twenty-nine. It’s a fair price, Mom. Kim pulled the comparables. It’s actually a good price for out here.”