Page 32 of Roommating

I giggle. Marcia’s been talking about the drugs since the moment she found me in the waiting room after her procedure. The receptionist explained they take a bit to wear off.

“I’ve never seen such shiny floors in a diner. Have you ever seen such shiny floors in a diner, Sabrina?” Marcia ogles her feet like a naked Chris Evans is sprawled across the admittedly very shiny hardwood.

“I’ll send the compliments to the staff.” Amused, the waitress gestures to the mugs on the table and when we nod, pours coffee into both of them before taking our food orders.

“Thank you again for picking me up,” Marcia says for the fourth time when we’re alone again. She’s definitely still loopy and effusive with her gratitude.

“Of course.” Adam wanted to do it, but we agreed it was better for me to take the morning off from work than him since he just started last week.

After a sit-down on his first day, during which I described the basic responsibilities of a library page in detail, he watched me while I worked for the next two days. Then we turned the tables and I shadowed him, making sure he was well and truly prepared for the job before finally deeming him ready to work independently, like a child going off to kindergarten.

“You are a gem taking a PTO day to escort me today! I definitely think I got the long end of the stick with you as my roommate.”

I shake my head. “I respectfully disagree. You could charge three times as much money for that room!” A wave of panic whooshes through me in case she decides that, yes, she absolutely can. But I also have a feeling she won’t remember much of this drug-induced conversation. “Besides, I did it because I care about you, not because of some sort of obligation.” I leave out that as a nonunion part-timer, I don’t get paid time off. “I hope you know that I don’t think of you as some sort of job and that I’m more to you than a mattress flipper slash computer lesson.” I cringe at what feels like fishing, but she’ll probably forget this part of the conversation too. At least I hope so.

She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “I love living with you. And having Adam too is the cherry on top of the whippedcream.” Her face clouds over for a second. “He doesn’t talk about it, but he had a difficult childhood.”

“Really? How so?” I ask, eager to learn more.

Before she can answer, the waitress drops off our food.

Marcia pours maple syrup into every crevice of her waffle before cutting a square and taking a bite. She closes her eyes like it’s a Michelin star–quality breakfast.

I assume she’s lost track of the conversation, but then she swallows, places her fork on the ceramic plate, and leans toward me like she’s about to share the meaning of life. I brace for her next words.

“He was very close with his mother and lost her when he was only twelve.”

My throat goes thick. He only mentioned his mom once, when he told me her identity was stolen. I should have asked more about her. “How’d she die?”

“Breast cancer. She was only thirty-eight.”

The piece of bacon I just swallowed feels trapped in my throat. That’s so young. “I’m so sorry!”

“Me too. Renee was wonderful.” Marcia closes her eyes for a beat. “If she’d been alive after Robert died and I came out as bisexual, things might have been different in many ways.” She shakes her head slowly. “His reaction would have been the same, but Renee would have said congratulations and moved onandmade sure that my relationship with Adam didn’t suffer because of Jeffrey’s biases. Instead Adam was raised by a man who expected him to follow in his footsteps. But Adam is an independent thinker, like me and like his mother. From what he tells me, they disagree on so many things, but unfortunately I wasn’t around to take his side after the age of fourteen or fifteen.” She sips her coffee. “I’m just glad he had moreopen-minded people in his life, like his classmates and teachers. Like I had my community.”

Marcia told me that when she first came out, she joined a local support group for LGBTQIA seniors—people who could truly relate to the experience of coming out later in life. “Did you ever have a girlfriend?” I feel a pang of guilt like I’m taking advantage of her buzzed condition, but I’m curious because she hasn’t dated anyone—man, woman, or nonbinary—since I’ve moved in.

“I had the one Jeffrey met, but it didn’t last and then I just got frustrated and bored with the whole thing. Menopause also wreaked havoc on my hormones.” She screws up her face. “But that’s even worse than colonoscopy prep, and I won’t depress you with the details!”

I smile softly. “I’m always here to listen if you want to talk!”

Her lips form a straight line. “Sometimes there are things you wish you didn’t know about the people you love. That’s how I feel about my son. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get when Adam showed up, and boy am I pleased with the man he’s become.”

I picture the awkward bar mitzvah photo and think the same thing.

She peers at me. “He likes you.”

I pick at my omelet. When the drugs wear off Marcia might regret being so forthcoming, so I decide not to press more or tell her that I like him too… a lot. Across from me, she attacks her breakfast with gusto while I contemplate what things must have been like for Adam after his mom died. He was raised by someone with a belief system completely mismatched with his own, no siblings, and kept apart from his grandmother.

My own family isn’t perfect. When my parents first split, my dad would take us out maybe once a month, and I couldn’t wait to see my daddy! But then it slowed down to every six months, once a year, two years, and so on. And we never knew if he’d actually follow through. I still remember staring out the living room window with Audrina for hours one day, waiting for our dad’s car to pull up the driveway to take us to an amusement park. He never showed up and didn’t bother to tell Mom he wasn’t coming until hours later, when it was already obvious. It wasn’t the only time he stood us up. Eventually, he stopped bothering to make plans altogether. Mom never let us down like that. I might have resented how much she worked, but I respected the heck out of her. I knew she loved me, and Nana made sure all my needs were taken care of. My Nana was my best pal and reading buddy. There was no one whose company I enjoyed more.

Growing up, people always assumed Nana was my mom’s mother—friends who came over, teachers Nana met with at school conferences she attended when Mom was working—but she was my father’s mom. His parents moved in after he left to help take care of us while my mother built her career.

Only I ignored all the good stuff in my rebellious teenage years. As I learned more about how fathers aresupposedto act versus the inaction of my own, my relationship with Nana changed. I was angry, and since I couldn’t take it out on him directly, his mother became my scapegoat. I directed the brunt of my attitude toward my nana. I stopped spending time with her that wasn’t forced and snapped at her constantly. How could she justallowher son to abandon his wife and children? Why didn’t she hate him like I did? Those years, it was all about me and my loss (well, mine, my sister’s, and our mother’s). It didn’t occur to me that Nana had also lost a son. Bythe time I got a clue, she was gone, and it was too late to apologize and try to reclaim our closeness.

I look across the table at Marcia and am struck by the parallels between her relationship with Adam’s dad and Nana’s with mine. The specifics are different, but they share disappointment and anger toward their son along with the stubborn enduring lovemostparents feel toward their children no matter what.

“Are you okay, Sabrina?”

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