When I entered through the garage, the kitchen looked wrong. Beer bottles covered the counter. There was an open bag of chips, a half-eaten pizza, and a stain in the hallway carpet that looked several days old.
Then I heard football on television.
The sound was coming from the guest room.
My mother’s room.
I walked down the hall and opened the door.
Gabriel was sitting on the bed. Danny occupied the chair I had placed by the window for Mom. Beer and snacks were scattered around them while a football game played loudly on the television.
Gabriel went pale when he saw me.
“Honey. I didn’t know you were coming home early.”
I looked around once.
“Where is my mother?”
He hesitated.
“My brother came over, and we wanted to watch the game in here because there’s a television.”
“Where is my mother, Gabriel?”
“I moved her downstairs.”
I stared at him.
“The basement?”
“She’s comfortable down there.”
“This is her room.”
His expression hardened, as if getting defensive might somehow make the situation reasonable.
“No, it isn’t. It’s my room. This whole house is mine. I’m the man of the house.”
I said nothing. I turned and went downstairs.
Our basement was technically finished, but nobody would call it a proper bedroom. There was no bathroom and no real window. It contained storage, a laundry area, and the furnace.
In the middle of the floor was an air mattress.
My seventy-year-old mother, three weeks into chemotherapy, was asleep on it.
Her medication bottles were beside her on the floor.
What made the sight downstairs worse was that every detail of the guest room had been chosen for a reason. chafar The bathroom was steps away because Mom sometimes had only seconds of warning when nausea hit. The bed was high enough that she could stand without struggling. The chair by the window gave her somewhere to sit on days when lying down made her feel trapped. The basement erased all of that. To reach a bathroom she had to climb stairs. To stand from the air mattress she had to push herself up from nearly floor level. Gabriel had not simply exchanged one sleeping place for another. He had removed every small accommodation that made her treatment more manageable.
I stood there feeling something inside me go cold.
Mom stirred and opened her eyes.
“Sara?”
“I’m here.”
“You came home early.”
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