He wakes in early afternoon, washes his face, pokes around in the fridge – doesn’t eat, lumbers to the ps and sofa, yawns, starts it all up. (Summer schedule.). He is big, tall. He hasn’t caught up to himself, probably won’t  for a few years.

He is quiet, shuffles through messages, invites, “streaming conditions” .Social obligations covered, he engages me, the maker of food, and bringer of stuff he needs and wants (teenager equations), “Gramma, how long have we been sheltering at home? I think I need to find some people. I need some people.”

His profound self actualization jars me, “I think I need some people, too, but it isn’t safe to be around other people yet. I’m sorry.”

“Well, let’s be more peopley with each other then. Let’s bring back game night.”

He jars me again. When exactly did game night stop…? “Yeah, let’s bring back game night. How about Friday nights?”

Yeah. Friday nights.”

He plays video games, watches anime, streams for a while… finally eats, reads part of his summer reading book assigned back in March when the world closed.

“Cam, are you ready for game night? Want a pizza? What game do you want to play?”

“I thought you said Fridays?”

“It is Friday.”

“Well, you wanna just watch me play this with my friends instead… and eat pizza?”

“Sure, Buddy. Will that be peopley enough for you?”

“Yeah, that works. We can play games next Friday.”

He plays until 2am. I sleep on the sofa next to him. We people together.

 

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 8am