A Lanae Pandey

Mom would add dumplings when she returned from her college faculty meeting. And she needed to stop by the store on the way home to get another pair of sneakers for Maggie. And she needed to talk to Nana about updating her old computer or buying a new one altogether. And her mental list kept getting longer and longer. Mom thought she could give up 4 hours of sleep a night, but she would still be 8 hours behind every day.

Maggie’s old bedroom was now Dad’s new office. Getting his things up the stairs was anything but easy. Dad and his brother, Nick, maneuvered the vintage drafting table around the stair landings and squeezed it through the doorway of the dormer room. In reality, Dad did very little work at the drafting table now, which was scuffed and scratched by years of use. He used computer-aided design tools to help create his architectural blueprints, but he loved the look of the ancient table.