Page 42 of Brother in Law with Benefits

I was eighteen years old, recruiter's office in Springfield, signing papers before I'd told anyone. I'd wanted the decision made before anyone could talk me out of it, before I had to defend it to a room full of people who loved me and would've had good reasons to ask me to stay. I notice, sitting here now, that I just did the same thing in reverse — made the decision to stay before anyone could talk me out of that either.

Some instincts, apparently, don't change. Only the direction they point.

I just turned down the work I've been doing for twenty years. Turned down the version of my life where I keep moving.

And I feelfree.

Terrified and completely free.

Mom is in the kitchen when I get back and she’s moving with more energy than she had yesterday.

"You were up early," she says.

"Turned down Brazil," I say.

She sets the kettle down. Crosses the kitchen. Takes my face in her small, thin hands the way she did when I was a kid and she needed me to look at her.

Her eyes are wet.

"Don't," I say.

"I'm not crying. I'm… yes I am." She pulls me down by the neck and kisses my forehead. "Good. Now I'm done."

She lets go and turns back to her tea with the matter-of-fact efficiency of a woman who has been waiting forty-three years for this and is trying her best not to make it a big deal.

"You want eggs?" she asks.

"Sure."

"I'm not making them. You make them. I'll supervise." She sits at the table. "Does Sophie know?"

"Not yet. I'll tell her today."

"Don't wait."

"I'm not going to wait. I just want to have the rest of it figured out first. I'm meeting Camden Abbott this afternoon — he might have a position at Sullivan Construction."

"Camden's a good man. Solid company." She wraps her hands around her mug. "Grant. She doesn't need the plan. She needs to know you're here."

"I know. I'll tell her today."

"Before the afternoon."

"Yes, Ma."

"Before lunch."

"I'll call her after I leave here."

She considers this. "Okay." A pause. "And when you do talk to her don’t use the Grant Guilligan Mission Briefing tone. The other one."

"I have other versions?"

"You've had one since you got back. The one you use when she's in the room and you think I'm not watching." She picks up her tea. "Use that one."

I make the eggs. She supervises by offering exactly two pieces of unsolicited advice. It's the most domestic morning I've had in twenty years and it's better than I remembered mornings being.

Halfway through eating, she sets down her fork. "You're going to need to call your brother soon, you know. Before this becomes something he hears secondhand."