“Girls, Mother, can you come out here?” Mom calls the three of us from our rooms sooner than expected. “I want to give you a new tour of the house,” she says once we’ve gathered in our shrinking living room. “There will be a few changes since George is the man of the house now.”
Smiling to George, she nods in his direction. “See this half of the couch? It’s now George’s seat. You should never sit in it, even when he’s not home.” Mom produces the news with a hand on her hip, and a finger in the air.
Then with a strange sounding grunt that seems odd even to Mom, George sits down to demonstrate how he will be occupying his new spot on the couch. He kicks both his shoes off, sending them flying in the direction of our feet.
Even though I’ve known George for six whole months, I had no idea that all this time he’s been hiding a whole garbage dump under each sock. George’s stocking feet project a funk so toxic into the air that the furniture around it could very well disintegrate. You’d think a person would be begging for forgiveness for emitting such a smell, especially right before dinner. But George seems almost proud of his rankness, happily heaving his smelly feet up on our side of the couch with no self-consciousness whatsoever.
With no place to sit, Grandma, Toni and I stay standing in limbo, wanting to hold our noses, hoping Mom will quickly tell us what to do next.
“Dinner’s ready! C’mon George.”
George waddles in his low hung oil-stained mechanics uniform, past the three of us, toward Mom’s delicate white padded antique chair that’s strangely situated at the head of our dinner table. I know the value of that chair better than anyone. Mom shelled out two hundred and fifty dollars for it two years ago when she knew full well I needed new shoes.
“Wait, you can’t sit there,” I warn, distinctly remembering the lady at the antique store saying it was for looks only.
