“He is still in school, Richard,” I said, stepping closer to him, trying to catch his eye. “He doesn’t have a full-time job. He cannot afford a room in Elmwood on eleven dollars an hour.”
He checked his gold watch, a quick, impatient flick of his wrist.
“He has twelve minutes to take his clothes and clear out of this driveway,” he said.
“Where is he supposed to go with just one bag?” I asked, my voice shaking. “You cannot just throw him out over an argument.”
Richard turned to face me, his eyes dry and steady, completely devoid of any warmth.
“He should have thought about that before he decided to speak to me the way he did last night,” he said.
I looked down at the old canvas bag. It was the same one we had used for family trips to the lake when Ethan was small, the zipper now rusted and stiff.
“If you would just let him apologize,” I whispered.
“Apologies do not pay the mortgage, Mary,” he said, sliding his car keys into his pocket with a soft metal chime. “And they do not change the fact that he is a grown man living off my hard work.”
I wanted to remind him of the forty-two dollar birthday cake he had complained about, how he had made Ethan feel like a thief for wanting a simple celebration, but the look in his eyes stopped me.
“He is your son,” I said.
“He is a boy who needs to learn the value of a dollar,” Richard said. “And you are not helping him by coddling him.”
He turned and walked back toward the house, his polished shoes clean against the gravel, leaving the blue bag sitting alone on the ground.
The side door of the garage creaked on its rusty hinges, and Ethan walked out into the bright light, his blue sketchpad tucked under his arm.
He had his graphite pencil tucked behind his ear, his fingers smudged with dark gray lead from a drawing he must have been working on.
He stopped at the bottom step of the wooden porch, looking at the bag and then at me.
“Ethan, I can give you some cash,” I said, stepping toward him. “I have forty dollars in my drawer. It is enough for a bus ticket and some lunch.”
Ethan looked down at the old blue duffel bag, his face completely pale and tight.
“I do not want his money, Mom,” he said, his voice steady but low.
“It is not his money,” I said. “It is mine. I saved it from the grocery budget.”
He looked up at me, his eyes dark and wide, searching my face for something I knew I was too afraid to give him.
“You let him do this, Mom, and I will not forget it,” he said.
The words sat between us, cold and solid in the noon sun.
He picked up the heavy canvas strap and swung the bag over his shoulder, the weight of it pulling his left side down.
“Where will you sleep tonight?” I asked, my voice cracking.
He did not answer me.
“Ethan, please,” I said. “Just tell me you have a place. Call your aunt Caroline. She has the spare room.”
He turned his back to me and began walking down the gravel driveway, his sneakers kicking up small gray clouds of dust.
I stood on the porch, my fingers gripping the wooden railing until the paint flaked off under my fingernails.
He did not look back once, not even when he reached the main road and turned toward the center of Elmwood.
The house felt entirely too large and too quiet when I walked back inside.
By two o’clock, the silence in the living room was thick enough to feel like a physical weight.
I sat on the very edge of the sofa, my phone held tightly in both hands, staring at the black screen until it timed out.
