The special guest was Roland’s mother, Beatrice. Years earlier, after her hip replacement, she had stayed with us for almost a month, and I had rearranged my work schedule to make sure she had a comfortable downstairs bedroom. The moment Beatrice saw Adelaide sitting weakly at the table and heard where Roland had made her sleep, her expression changed. “You put a seventy-four-year-old woman going through chemotherapy on an air mattress in the basement so you could watch football?” she asked. Roland tried explaining that it was his house and his brother needed the television. Beatrice stared at him and said, “Then you should have taken your brother downstairs.”
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