So you did what came next, what came, almost, naturally. You said fuck it. And you asked the nice man standing in your foyer for his help.

For lack of a daughter, then — a proper daughter, a daughter who called more than once every couple of months, a daughter who visited more than once a year, a daughter willing to shoulder her way past the slammed-shut door of “Fine” every time she asked her mother “How are things?” — Irene had managed to recruit herself a son.

A son nothing like the daughter. Willing to apply his shoulder to any and every shut door you put before him — Trevor was all about muscling open doors, because Trevor lived to give. Unlike some people. Trevor was doting to the point of being pushy. Trevor got angry if his opinions were not heeded, because he was trying to help, goddamnit. Trevor took the initiative. He put his hand on the mower — Let me do this — and took it from you before you could argue. He got up on the ladder to the clean the gutters and noticed, perhaps, that some of the shingles had come loose up there. He promised to be back on Saturday to deal with that little issue, then maybe he’d see about the lawn.

Oh no, Trevor dear, I couldn’t ask you to . . .

Not another word, Rini, not another word.

Well, at least let me (reaching for her purse) —

— Goddamnit, I’m gonna stop you right there, Rini — pardon my French — before you insult us both.

It was just what Irene needed, but never had. Someone to take over. Someone to insist that she could not do it all, and to ignore her when she insisted that she could. Someone to steamroll that iron will of hers and take things upon himself, who didn’t ask permission first, who matched Irene’s yin of passive, uncomplaining selflessness with a yang of brash, assertive selflessness all his own.

I hope you’ll stay for dinner, at least, Trevor?

Dinner with my two best girls? Now that I won’t fight you on, Rini.

Shall we barbecue? I bought steaks!

Meanwhile, thanks to this collaboration, the illusions of a semi-estranged daughter were permitted to remain intact. Irene Petrie remained a superhuman specimen of competent womanhood, cancer and all. Irene could do it all herself; she needed no one. She was fine. Until she wasn’t.

But up until that moment, it had certainly been a convenient arrangement for all concerned.

Kelli found me in the basement, staring at where the big-screen TV used to be. I’d been sitting in her chair, remembering the easy way Trevor had reclined in it like it was the throne to which he’d been born, sliding his beer into the cup holder without having to look to see where it was. And I was thinking about my mother’s giant television, how puzzling its existence was to me, and how the certainty just overtook me on the afternoon of the yard sale that it belonged with Trevor. Because it did. Because, in fact, it was Trevor’s television. Just as, I assumed, the outsized cable package that went with it, that offered all the sports channels, was Trevor’s cable package.