He stands at the Formica countertop, watching her wrapping dishes and utensils in newspaper. The house is so quiet. All the radios and televisions are gone. Most of the rooms so barren they echo. “I count six bottles of mustard,” Renée says. “And butter. Eight sticks in here and four boxes in the freezer.” Four boxes. She lived by herself. Did she put butter in everything? Renée wears elbow-length yellow rubber gloves, constantly swipes strands of hair away from her face. Blows at them angrily, as if they were mosquitoes, wasps. Mason walks two boxes out to the trunk of their car. He breathes deeply. His mother had never quite approved of Renée, would’ve screamed to find her there in the kitchen, scrutinizing the contents of her refrigerator. He never understood it, how they could dislike each other so politely, so quietly, so instinctually. And Renée, equally obstinate about his mother. Renée had hated his mother’s “fashion,” her interior decorating, her taste in fiction, her cooking.
