“Mom,” he says carefully, “I was going to call you.”
There it is. Not surprise. Not confusion. Delay.
“You were going to call me after your wife called me an old leech on my own porch?” you ask.
“Jesus,” he mutters. “She said that?”
“In front of at least ten people.”
He exhales hard. “Okay. That’s not acceptable.”
The phrase almost makes you laugh.
“Robert, your standards for acceptable behavior are not the central issue right now. Why is your wife’s family in my house?”
You hear office noise in the background, a printer, a far-off male voice, the shuffled soundtrack of modern irresponsibility. “Megan’s sister had some issue with her apartment,” he says. “Then her mom came down to help with the baby. It turned into more people than expected. I told Megan they could use the place for a few days.”
“A few days.”
