“A Three Generation Household.” That is how my mom described my sister’s house now that she’s living there. I still can’t wrap my head around it. My mom – 100 pounds of smiles and spontaneous singing – living with my sister, the hoarder, the prepper and anti-vaxer, and her husband, three small children, a woman they met on the internet, and her dog and cat. My mom – lover of fresh vegetables and exercise – living with my sister, whose cooking extends only as far as hot dogs and top ramen. My mom – a woman who still makes her bed each morning – living with my sister’s stagnant piles of unwashed dishes and laundry.

“It’s taking some getting used to,” my mom told me after her third week sleeping on their couch – her one vague admission that it was not where she’d like to be. I picture her tiny body tense throughout the night, barely leaving a dent in the musty cushions.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. For seven years, my mom has lived rent-free in the spare room of an elderly church friend I’ll call Emm. Although, I shouldn’t say “rent-free” when Emm is prone to unpredictable, angry outbursts that paralyze my mom and leave her feeling rattled. It’s just the price of living here, she told me after I’d witnessed Emm shouting at her for the first time. But the house is immaculate – all pink and cream with cross-stitch bible verses neatly lined on the wall. God Is Love and whatnot. The higher price, though, is no proper lease agreement or agency whatsoever. When Emm didn’t feel comfortable facing a pandemic with my mom, she left a bag of her belongings on the sidewalk and asked her to find somewhere else to go. God is love, indeed…

This time a year ago, my sister was living in a Days Inn motel room after losing her house.
I can’t picture that, either – her husband’s night shift, her attempts at homeschooling the children – all while sharing two stiff queen beds, one bathroom, and no kitchen. The animals, I’m told, stayed with friends only after the motel demanded it. I never got the story on how the foreclosure happened. Still, it felt like an echo of how we grew up – financially tenuous, hanging by a thread, marching our boxed belongings somewhere else when the eviction notices showed up. I haven’t seen their new house yet – a rental in central Maryland – but my mom said it reminded her of the old farmhouse her parents inherited.
Drafty, poorly insulated, with the occasional garden snake in the kitchen. Nostalgic is how she put it to me with a shimmer in her voice – perhaps to make it sound more appealing.

I don’t live anywhere near Maryland. I chose Los Angeles by chance after college and now can’t picture myself anywhere else. Two days before California announced its lockdown due to Covid19, I lived at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco for a five-month job. My room was as large as my home with a soaking tub and separate standing shower I never quite felt I deserved. The hotel was nearly empty of guests by the time I left. However, the bartenders still stood in starched uniforms, and a live pianist played for tips in the lobby. I joked that it was like living on the Titanic – still luxurious in the face of looming chaos. I still get that unsettling feeling now that I’m home – the one that wonders where the lifeboats are for people like my family. The feeling that safety might be for a different class of people – people I don’t come from. People I could never be.