My Son Wanted Me to Keep the Guest Room Empty. I Had Someone Else in Mind.

My son was upset that I was renting out the room he’d slept in for two nights last year.

I’d been living alone since his dad died. I was looking forward to having someone around again. He wanted to know where he was supposed to sleep.

“The office has a pullout,” I told Eric. “The same one your cousin used in June.”

“Mom, that thing isn’t comfortable.”

“You stayed two nights last year, Eric.”

That came out nastier than I meant it to. I do wish he visited more, and apparently I decided to throw that into the conversation too.

I’m 71. My husband, Don, died five years ago. I still live in the house we bought when our son was in elementary school. The mortgage is paid, but plenty of other bills still arrive. Insurance went up again this year, and I just paid to have a leak under the kitchen sink fixed.

I can pay my bills. I’m careful. I also don’t enjoy paying to heat rooms I hardly use.

Ruth is the friend moving in. We worked together for 18 years. She knows I’m fussy about the kitchen counters. I know she puts the television too loud. We’ve shared hotel rooms on a couple of trips. Living together is different, obviously, but it wasn’t like I was inviting a stranger in.

Her lease was ending. Her landlord wanted to raise the rent, and she didn’t want to spend another year stretching her budget to live alone.

One afternoon, we started talking about my spare room. We talked again the next week. Then we sat down with a notebook and went through rent, groceries, visitors, all that. Ruth brought up cleaning. I said I was easy to live with, and she gave me a look. Fair enough. She knows me.

We agreed on rent and put our arrangement in writing before setting a move-in date. We both wanted our own lives. Ruth still drives and has her own friends. I wasn’t expecting us to do everything together, and she wasn’t either.

I told Eric after we’d made our decision, with six weeks still to go.

“You should have talked to me first,” he said.

“I wanted to get it figured out before I told everybody.”

“Dad wouldn’t have wanted someone living there.”

That upset me more than the complaint about the pullout.

“Please don’t bring your dad into this. I’m having a hard enough time with the room as it is.”

He said he didn’t mean it that way. But he kept calling the room his room, although it had been a guest room for more than 20 years.

I told him he and Kim were still welcome. We could make the office comfortable. If they preferred a hotel, I understood.

“So we’re being pushed out.”

“Eric, I’m not pushing you out. I already told you where you can sleep.”

We kept going back and forth. I got louder, he got quieter, and then he said,

“If that’s how it’s going to be, maybe we just won’t come anymore.”

I didn’t answer right away. I was afraid I’d either cry or say something I couldn’t take back.

“Are you really saying you won’t visit me over a bedroom?” I asked. He said that wasn’t what he meant. I told him it sounded exactly like what he meant.

He said he had to go.

After we hung up, I walked into the spare room. It had a good bed, two empty drawers, and Eric’s old baseball glove on the shelf. I kept the glove because I liked looking at it. He hadn’t asked about it in years.

I sat on the bed and thought about canceling the whole arrangement. It would be easier, at least that afternoon.

Then Ruth called to ask if I wanted the smaller bookcase she’d offered me. She had measured it and wanted to make sure it would fit.

I said yes. I didn’t tell her about Eric until she came over the next day.

She looked worried.

“I don’t want to come between you and your family.”

“You haven’t.”

“He might see it differently.”

“I know.”

She asked if I wanted more time. I said no too quickly, and then I had to admit I was upset. Poor Ruth sat there while I went through the whole phone call again. I was embarrassed afterward. She shouldn’t have had to reassure me about moving into a room she’d already agreed to pay for.

I said we should keep the date we’d chosen.

Kim called a few days later. She said Eric was upset, and she didn’t want to carry messages between us.

I told her I appreciated that.

“For what it’s worth, I can sleep on a pullout,” she said. “We’ve done worse.”

We both laughed a little.

She said she’d let Eric know we’d talked. I nearly asked her to talk some sense into him. I’d already started saying it when I stopped. She has to live with him; she didn’t need me putting her in the middle.

Ruth moved in on a Saturday. Her brother helped with the boxes. We ordered sandwiches. I’d spent so much time clearing drawers that I’d forgotten to buy anything for lunch.

That first evening was strange. I was used to nobody asking what channel I wanted. She was used to nobody asking when she planned to use the washer.

We didn’t suddenly become a perfect household.

On the third morning, she used a pan I wash by hand and put it in the dishwasher. On the fifth, I moved the things she’d left by the front door. She said she hadn’t realized I was going to decide where all her things belonged.

I started to explain that it was my house. I did say that it was my house, actually. She said she knew whose house it was, but she’d paid rent and needed somewhere to put her shoes. We didn’t talk much for the rest of the morning. I apologized over lunch. I’d put her things in a closet without even asking.

We went back to the notebook. Some things stayed separate. Some we changed. She bought a basket for the front door. I showed her which pan I cared about.

Eric called the following Sunday. He asked if I needed anything done around the house.

“No, thank you.”

He asked about the car. Then the furnace. Finally, he said, “Is she there?”

“She’s at her sister’s.”

“Oh.”

I asked if he was still mad about the room. He said it wasn’t just the room. I said, ‘Well, what is it, then?’ I wasn’t being especially patient by that point.

“It already feels different without Dad,” he said. “I come home, and now there’s going to be someone else’s stuff everywhere.”

I understood that more than he probably expected. I’d spent five years deciding which of Don’s things to keep and which I could finally put away. Some days I still wanted the old house exactly as it had been.

“I miss him too,” I said. “And I don’t know, Eric. Maybe I should’ve told you sooner. But I don’t like being here by myself all the time.”

He didn’t answer.

“I didn’t move his pictures,” I added. “I’m not asking you to forget him.”

“I know.”

I asked whether he really wasn’t coming anymore. He said of course he’d come. I told him I’d been worrying about that all week. I don’t think he’d realized I’d taken him seriously, which annoyed me all over again.

He said he shouldn’t have said it. He didn’t apologize for the rest. I didn’t ask him to do it all in one call.

About a month later, he and Kim came for a weekend. I bought a mattress topper for the pullout. Eric helped me carry it upstairs and complained that it weighed more than the sofa.

Ruth had plans with her sister that afternoon. Before she left, she asked Eric if he wanted the last of the coffee.

He said yes. They talked for a few minutes about a road closure. I stayed out of it, though I was listening from the kitchen. Yes, I know.

When they left on Sunday, he asked if the office would be available at Christmas.

I said it would.

Ruth and I still disagree about the television volume. I sometimes want the kitchen to myself. Sometimes I say so. Sometimes I bang around with the dishes and expect her to figure it out, which she usually doesn’t. We’re still working on that.

Yesterday, she texted from the grocery store to ask if I needed anything. I asked for milk. She came home with the milk and a small pie that was marked down.

We had it after dinner. I washed the plates, and she dried them. Then she went to her room to call her sister, and I watched my show. Eric’s still calling it ‘my old room.’ Ruth doesn’t seem bothered. I notice it every time, but so far I’ve managed to keep that to myself.

A fictional story inspired by everyday family situations.