“It’s a tough market,” I said vaguely as I glanced around the lunchroom. “I think they have the tables too close together in here. And it’s not clear how you’re supposed to move through the food line. They could have that marked on the ground.”
“I don’t think they designed for accessibility,” he said. I noticed that he was walking very carefully as we carried our trays to a table.
“They should have designed for it!” I answered. “They should have thought about how people would see and move in here.”
“It’s an old building. They probably do the best that they can.”
It wasn’t good enough. I thought about where I’d sat in the stadium when I’d come to the game with my brother, how steep the stairs had been to reach our seats. I also thought about the dim lighting in the hallways in the unrenovated part of the building where Shane had worked before. The signs that pointedto different locations around this complex had a small, fancy font, and they didn’t have braille. The carpet was gray, the walls were gray, and so was the furniture! There was no contrast and that made negotiating the space a lot harder for him.
I mentioned all that, since I was in the mood to be mad at the Woodsmen. “I also think that the way your colleagues are treating you is basically harassment. It’s a hostile work environment,” I declared. I knew what that was, since I had worked with my dad calling me stupid and worthless. I went on about the glass walls, the steps without handrails, the—
“Good golly.” He had leaned back in his chair and was staring at me. “You’re still doing it.”
“What am I doing? Talking too much?”
“No, you’re still trying to convince me that I can’t do my job,” he answered. “You’ve just told me twenty things that make it impossible for me to work here.”
“That wasn’t what I was doing,” I said. “I was trying to point out that they’re making it harder for someone who has a disability, and I don’t think that’s fair.”
I watched a flush start to rise up in his cheeks. “I’m not thinking of myself that way,” he told me. “I don’t want special treatment.”
“Are we arguing about this again?” I asked incredulously. “You do need accommodations, but they’re not ‘special treatment.’ It’s different treatment because you see differently, just like a very tall person, a basketball center, might want a higher desk or a different chair. It’s the same thing. I think you need to work on accepting it.”
“Yeah, obviously.” He put down his fork, although he had hardly touched the vegetable lasagna on his plate and I knew how much he loved zucchini and squash. “I have to get back to work. Are you done eating?”
I was, because I no longer felt hungry myself. “I’m sorry,” I stated. I really was. “I know that I have a tendency to jump in and want to solve things.”
“You did that at Walter’s. You did that with your sister, too. Now you’re trying to do it with me, because I’m your new problem.”
“What? You’re not a problem.”
“You’re staying up at night to make sure I get home ok, the same way my dad used to do when I was a teenager. You stand at the window to watch the car pick me up just like my mom did when the school bus came. You’re childproofing the house for me, like taking away a rug because I guess I toddle around? You read to me like I’m an infant.”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. All those things were somewhat true, but not for the reasons he was thinking. “I stand at the window because I like to see you,” I explained, but then a big lump got caught in my throat.
“Now I’m making you cry. I’m making you worried and upset, all the time. I knew this would happen. That’s why you shouldn’t have moved in.”
“But you said that it was good for me to live in the duplex. When I talked about leaving and finding my own place, you asked why, because I’d just be paying someone else. You said it made sensefor me to stay,” I reminded him. But he didn’t really want me? The lump in my throat expanded.
“Because I’m a selfish jackoff,” Shane said. “I never should have allowed this to happen. It’s the same reason that I don’t want my sister to come here and I can’t ever move back home, because then she and my parents will get stuck taking care of me. I forced you into it.”
My indignation overcame my throat issues. “You did not! I’m happy that I live with you.”
“Because you’re used to solving everyone’s problems.”
“No, because I really like you and you’re my best friend. I’m not trying to solve you,” I told him. “I’m just trying to help but if you don’t want that and you don’t think that you need it, then…ok. I understand.”
“I don’t think you do.” He shook his head. “What’s life going to be like for me in a few years? No job, trapped in a room, living off government assistance, no kids, no future. Is that what you would want for yourself? You’re too willing to sacrifice, Molly. You’re letting people take and take. First your parents and your siblings, and now me. I’m doing that, too, and I hate it. I care too much about you to watch it happen.”
I didn’t really hear the last part of what he said because I was trying to grab my bag, which had somehow gotten tangled around the leg of my chair. I could only hope that the people around us, a few who were clearly eavesdropping, weren’t also recording. I really didn’t need another embarrassing video going around, although this one wouldn’t be full of sex questions. Itwas all about me infantilizing the person I thought I was helping, and bossing him like I’d done to my family. It would show him dropping me and hating me, just like my brother had done when I was a stupid kid who used to follow him around.
It would have also featured a lot of shots of me crying and trying to stop. I wasn’t really able to do that.
“Molly, hold on,” he said, but I didn’t. I had finally yanked my purse clear of that dumb chair and I was on my way out the door, but then I couldn’t read the sign to see which way was the exit! How the hell were you supposed to get out of this building? It was impossible to tell when your eyes were filled with tears.
“Molly!” Shane hadn’t moved carefully at all because he had already joined me in the hallway, around the corner at a bank of drinking fountains and water bottle fillers. It was a dead end and I was trapped, due to their poor signage.
“I’m sorry,” he told me. “I apologize.”
