My son brought his boyfriend home for Sunday dinner, and the second I saw that young man’s face I went cold with a serving spoon still in my hand. Twenty minutes later I had locked him in my own basement and was calling the police — and I was wrong to do it, and I would do it again, and both of those are true.

I do not know how long I stood there. Elliot says it was about four seconds.

Then I said something completely normal about how lovely it was to finally meet him and could he hand me the trivet.

And for twenty minutes I served a pot roast.

I have thought about those twenty minutes more than anything else in this. I laughed at something. I asked him what he was studying. He said environmental science and that he was not very good at it, and Elliot said he was being modest, and Kai went pink.

Then I said there was something in the basement I wanted to show him. A box of Elliot’s baby things, I said. Elliot rolled his eyes and said he would bring drinks down.

Kai went first down those stairs, the way you do when somebody is directing you.

And when he stepped through the basement door I pulled it shut and turned the key.