? Mom’s belongings (7 boxes total)
? Photo albums (box 3/7 in progress)
? Medical records (decide: keep/scan/discard?)
? Clothing (donate vs. keep — contingency: storage unit if can’t decide)
? Clothes & personal items — complete by Dec 28
? Confirm moving truck reservation (backup: U-Haul if primary cancels)
Even his late mother was a project with deadlines and contingencies. Even his grief had checkboxes.
The bedroom door opened and Connor padded in, stopping when he saw me holding his notebook.
“Morning,” he said carefully.
“You’re tracking my milk consumption.” I held up the notebook. “The thermostat, the curtains.”
“I—” He set his mug down. “I was just trying to help.”
“Connor, there’s nothing on here for you. No breakfast. No rest. No ‘take five minutes to breathe.’ Just everyone else’s needs. Victoria’s calendar. Grace’s Santa thing. My milk. Your mom’s photo albums.”
His jaw tightened. “That’s not—”
“And I’m on here like I’m another thing you need to manage. Track her symptoms. Monitor her needs. Make sure she’s taken care of.”
“You’re cold at night,” he said, voice tight.
“So I grab a sweater. That’s normal, Connor. You don’t need to add it to your list.” I set the notebook down. “I’m not one of your projects.”
The silence stretched between us, broken only by the sound of the heat kicking on. Hadhe turned up the thermostat?
Connor stared at the notebook like it had betrayed him. “I don’t know how else to do this.”
“Do what?”
He picked up the notebook, looked at his own handwriting like he was seeing it for the first time. “This is what I do. I anticipate needs. I make sure everything runs smoothly so that—” He stopped, jaw tight.
“So that what?”
He let out a long breath, like it pained him. “If I caught my mom’s symptoms early—the tremors, the fatigue, the blurred vision—the neurologist could adjust her meds. Sometimescatching it a day earlier meant she’d have a good week instead of a bad one.”
Oh.Oh shit.
“And I wore another sweater, even in the summer,” he continued, staring at the notebook. “If keeping the AC at 68 meant she wouldn’t overheat and trigger a relapse. It was just… what I did. What I had to do.”
I moved closer, drawn by the rawness in his voice.
“Victoria needs the same thing. Someone to anticipate the problems before they spiral, to make sure she eats lunch and doesn’t triple book herself and picks up her dry cleaning.” He finally looked at me. “And I’m good at it. Really good. It feels like… like I could still help someone, even if it wasn't enough for my mom.”
My throat went tight.
“Connor,” I said softly. “Your mom was sick. Victoria pays you to do it—it’s literally your job. But I’m not sick, and I’m not your boss. And sometimes I’m cold, or I run out of milk, and that’s okay.”
“But I see that you need—” He gestured helplessly. “I can’t turn it off.”
“I’m not asking you to turn it off. I’m asking you to include yourself.” I took the notebook from his hands, holding up the packing timeline. “Even your grief has deadlines.”
