Chapter 15 - The Casserole Dish
Two months later, Lauren brought me a casserole dish.
Same size as the one that shattered.
Blue ceramic instead of white.
I stared.
“What is this?”
“Housewarming.”
“I've lived here eleven years.”
“Trauma-warming.”
“You're terrible.”
“I know.”
I put it in the cabinet.
That night Jason came for dinner.
Not moving back.
Dinner.
We made baked ziti because apparently fate had a sense of humor.
He saw the blue dish.
His face changed.
“Lauren?”
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
When dinner was ready, I lifted it.
Jason immediately reached.
“I've got it.”
I tightened my grip.
He stopped.
Not because I couldn't use help.
Because he remembered.
Then he asked:
“Want me to carry it?”
I thought.
“Yes.”
He took it.
That surprised both of us.
We ate upstairs at the kitchen table.
No basement.
After dinner, we talked about his lease.
It ended in six weeks.
He had not brought it up for months.
Now he said:
“My landlord wants an answer by Friday.”
My stomach tightened.
I hated deadlines attached to relationships.
He noticed.
“This is not me asking to move home by Friday.”
“Good.”
“I can renew.”
“For how long?”
“Six months.”
I looked at him.
He waited.
No sales pitch.
No speech about rent.
No mention of how much we'd save together.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“To come home.”
Clear.
“And if I’m not ready?”
“I renew.”
He said it quickly enough that I believed he had already accepted the possibility.
I stood and carried plates to the sink.
Jason stayed seated.
Good.
I asked:
“Would you expect your mother to come here again someday?”
His face tightened.
“No.”
“Never?”
He thought.
“I don't know what ten years looks like.”
Better.
“Right now?”
“No.”
“And if I never want her here?”
He looked at me.
“Then she doesn't come here.”
“Because you're choosing me?”
His expression changed.
Old language.
Old trap.
He shook his head.
“Because it's also your home.”
I looked down at the plate in my hand.
That answer should have been obvious a year earlier.
It felt almost revolutionary now.
Jason said:
“I’m not asking you to forgive Mom.”
“I know.”
“I’m not asking you to trust me because I went to therapy.”
“I know.”
He smiled faintly.
“You stole my phrase.”
“It's useful.”
We cleaned the kitchen.
When he opened the cabinet to put away the casserole dish, he paused.
Then slid the blue ceramic onto the shelf.
No ceremony.
We walked to the front door.
Jason put on his coat.
“Friday.”
I nodded.
“I know.”
“If you don't know by then, I renew.”
“Yes.”
He touched the doorknob.
Then looked back.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He waited.
Nothing else came.
He nodded and left.
The next morning I stood at the top of the basement stairs with a basket of towels.
I could hear the washing machine below.
For a second my body remembered everything.
Margaret behind me.
The casserole leaving my hands.
Jason asking me to lie.
I held the rail.
Took the first step.
Then another.
At the bottom, I loaded the machine.
No one followed me.
No one told me what had happened.
No one asked me to rename it.
Upstairs, my phone buzzed.
Jason.
Lease office closes at five Friday. No pressure. Just keeping you in the loop.
I read it.
Then put the phone down.
Six weeks.
Six months.
Maybe longer.
I had learned what happened when someone promised a home before everyone living inside it had agreed.
May you like
I wasn't going to do that again.
Not even for a man I still loved.
