Unfortunately, right now I’m out of time to respond. I rush around the kitchen, unloading dishes and tidying the mess. My brain needs to shut up, but it’s caught in an infinite loop of everything Zoe has written to me — shimmering words of imaginary places, and friendliness and kindness I doubt I deserve. I think back to her response when I told her about my dad: That sounds pretty rough. I don’t know why I spilled about my boring personal tragedies, even as a joke. It was stupid — why would she care? But then her response was sympathetic. She made me stop and realize maybe my life is kind of rough — not just because Dad left, but because Mom is still here.

When Mom cooks, everything has to be in even numbers, certain foods have to be cut into exact cubes, and anything involving raw meat requires complete sterilization of the kitchen after it goes into the pan or oven.

I don’t remember it being this bad when Dad was here.

Her anxiety never seemed as bad back when he was local, but maybe that was because I had breaks from her then. Now she has me all the time, and my need to be fed and driven places, my unkempt bedroom — they’re challenges to her. I try to make life easier for her, to play along with her rules outside of my own room, but somehow it’s never enough.

On the other side of the wall, the garage door goes up and then down. Checking to see if it’s closed won’t be sufficient — she has to open it and then close it again to make it feel right. I briefly feel bad about bringing up VP nominations since that’s probably a big part of what has her on edge.

I turn the Stroganoff down as low as the burner will go and pray it doesn’t congeal into a brick while I scrub the cutting board and load the dishwasher.

Then I hear the garage door go up again.

As always, I’m going to have to intervene. People on the street might see her standing there opening and closing the door. What would they think? I don’t want their judgment or their pity, and I especially don’t want Mom to have to face that. Mom tries so hard to do everything right — it’s just that her version of right is different from the rest of the world’s.