the cooling in my workspace because you don’t approve of me using it.”
Richard loosened his tie.
“Can everybody please calm down?”
Susan nearly laughed.
That sentence had become Richard’s favorite response whenever conflict involved his mother.
It allowed him to sound reasonable without confronting the person who had caused the problem.
Susan closed her laptop.
“I am calm.”
Margaret scoffed.
“You didn’t sound calm earlier when you started calling this your house, as though my son doesn’t have any claim to it.”
Susan reached for her tablet.
She had
