The Day Mom Took the Front Bedroom

“Tammy and her boys are moving in Saturday,” Dad said, and he said it the way a man tells you the weather, with his fork still in his green beans.

We were sitting at Aunt June’s kitchen table, the yellow one with the chrome legs, on a Tuesday night in October. I had stopped by after my last call of the day to look at the pilot light on the water heater.

I had my work jacket on and my hands still smelled like copper and flux. I set my coffee cup down very carefully, because I did not trust what my hand might do with it.

“Moving in where,” I said.

“Here.” He pointed his fork at the ceiling, at the walls, at the whole little house. “Tammy, Kyle and Travis. Saturday morning. She’s renting a truck. I figured you’d want to know before you came by and found strangers in the hall.”

Tammy Reese was Dad’s girlfriend of eight months. I had met her twice. She was 58, she worked the deli counter at the grocery in town, and she laughed loud at things that were not that funny. Her boys were 31 and 28. I had nothing against her.

“Dad,” I said, “there’s two bedrooms in this house.”

“Kyle can have the front room once I clear it out. Travis can do the couch until he gets on his feet. Tammy’s with me.” He shrugged. “People have lived in smaller.”

“And who’s paying the gas bill when there’s four grown people running the furnace?”

He did not even look up from his plate. “You always have,” he said.

I sat with that. It was true. That was the worst part of it. It was true, and he said it like it was a thing about me and not a thing about him.

“Dad, Mom and I bought this house.”

“I know who bought it.” Now he looked up. “You and your mother bought it so you could feel good about yourselves. I’ve lived here six years, Shane. It’s my house. Don’t make it my problem now that I finally got somebody.”

He got up and scraped his plate into the trash and ran water over it. That was the end of the conversation, as far as he was concerned. It had always been that way with Dad. He said the thing, and then he walked off from it.

I looked at the pilot light. It was fine. I drove home.