sitting, and I’d remembered how good a cold beer tasted during an afternoon on the boat, or how good wine tasted when we were sitting together on the back deck in the evening. We hadn’t spoken of it again.
On Saturdays, they might be gone on the boat until noon or later, but on Sundays Paul had to be back for church. Early on, Paul had brought over a wooden workbench and they’d set it up near the water, and that’s where they gutted the fish. Paul hosed down the blood and they spilled the guts into the canal, and then packed the fish tightly in plastic wrap and divided the catch. When Dennis got home, he would shower and rest, and then Lola or Stuart might arrive for exercises, and by the afternoon the house would be full again. Several times when Gloria and Grady had been over, we’d run out of the prepared meals Marse had ordered for us, so Gloria had called the catering company and increased the spread: now the refrigerator was always full, and every time I opened it I felt a wave of relief and gratitude.
After the incident with Stuart and Lola, weeks passed without any hint of impropriety, and I started to doubt what I’d seen. Stuart remained his usual outspoken, grating, charming self, and he continued to visit almost every day. Margo was teaching summer classes—she was unavailable during much of the week—and so Stuart started to schedule his work hours around mine as much as possible, so he could be at the house when I wasn’t. This was not something I’d asked him to do. One afternoon, Stuart and Margo and Gloria and Grady and I were in the kitchen at the same time, jogging around each other, while Lola and Dennis were out back. Margo and Stuart were making lunch, Gloria was making lemonade, and Grady was looking for an old washcloth to wipe down the steering column on the boat, where he’d accidentally applied too much WD-40. While I was bustling around, getting a washcloth for Grady and sugar for Gloria, Stuart was dicing tomatoes, and he asked me—it was bad timing, but he’d never been one to wait for an opportunity to speak—what shifts I was working for the rest of the week. I paused in front of the open refrigerator. “Is today Tuesday?” I said to Stuart. I handed Grady the washcloth, and he went out the back door.
Stuart sighed. “Frannie, you need to put up a schedule.” He pointed to the refrigerator door, where there were four prescriptions and two wedding invitations—this was, as Stuart had noticed, the place where my reminders went.
“A schedule?”
“Write it down, and I’ll print it out on my computer.”
“I can print it out,” I said. We didn’t have a computer at home, but I used one at work; I was perfectly capable of making a calendar. “Is that necessary?”
“It is for us,” said Stuart. “We show up here, but we don’t know your work schedule or when we’re needed. You need to start delegating.”
“Delegating what?”
Stuart put down the knife. Apparently, he was finding me trying, and I wasn’t quite in the mood to humor him. Margo said, “Let’s not—” but Stuart put up his hand. He took a deep breath. “I’m just saying, if you posted your schedule, maybe we wouldn’t all end up in your kitchen at the same time, fighting for space.”
“Young man,” said Gloria. She continued to section lemons as she spoke. “I’m not sure that tone is necessary.”
He turned back to the cutting board. “I apologize.”
“You don’t have to be here,” I said to him. “Why don’t you go home?”
“Mother!” said Margo.
“I didn’t ask for a full house. I did not ask for—” I stopped. My voice was shaking.
“I’m just saying, a schedule would make things easier,” said Stuart.
“Goddamn it,” I said.
Gloria stepped toward me and, in an uncharacteristic gesture, put both arms around my shoulders. I shook inside the circle of her thin arms. “I’ll make a goddamn schedule,” I said. I realized even then, even while on the verge of throwing my son-in-law out of my house, that this was a practical idea.
“All right,” said Gloria.
Stuart left the room. Margo went after him, patting my back as she went. When I’d composed myself, Gloria let me go. We stood at the counter, looking out toward where Dennis stood in the swimming pool with Lola, lifting the water-filled weights above his head one at a time. I