Stay

It’s more than a command given to the dog.

My stay began almost two weeks ago. His stated goal was to make me feel comfortable. I was brought up to believe that if you are partaking of someone’s hospitality, you should not get comfortable because that could lead to you becoming complacent. In this case, it could lead to me not wanting to leave.

As far as I know, we have only had one issue, and even that was minor and quickly brought to a close. I asked if I could cook dinner, grilled steak. He said yes. I took a nap, woke up and started folding clothes. He came in and said that he started the grill and that the steaks were marinating. I got upset that he marinated the steaks. Petty, right? I just wanted to do it all for him, start to finish. He offered to put those steaks in the freezer and go buy new steaks. That seemed absurd to me. I don’t know if that was just a test, but I can’t imagine being that angry to suggest that he do something like that. Steak is not cheap. I even attempted to rinse off the steak. At that point I realized how ridiculous I was being and I began to consider what words to say to apologize. An apology was necessary. He was just being considerate, after all. He was upstairs and I don’t know what was going through his head, but I was downstairs, still forming my apology. He comes downstairs and apologizes to me! He’s not used to someone helping. I apologized for getting upset. It turns out we just wanted to help each other. We hugged and it was over. That lasted about 15 minutes (I told you it was minor). I can’t imagine being mad at him for longer than that. I definitely don’t ever want to go to bed mad at him.

Since then it has been lovely. Even his youngest is starting to like me. I’m wearing her down. I can tell.

I want to...