Red Cross Disaster Services moved us into a residential hotel. “Efficiency Suites” read the small sign to the right of the office door. Ours was on the third floor: a big living area with a kitchenette in the corner, followed by two bedrooms with a bathroom between them. There were windows along the right wall of the living room, the right and back wall of Mom’s room, the back of the bathroom, and the back of the room I shared with Brian. The right side windows overlooked a patio and black-bottomed pool in a kind of courtyard. Mom never let me swim in the pool at night.

I wasn’t too happy about sharing with Brian. I’ll admit I had even hoped for a big bed. But I was stuck in a twin in a small room with my baby brother, and I should have been grateful at that. If Mom had gone with her original plan to rent out the house, we probably would have been camping in a city park.

As it was I liked some things about the Santa Maria. It was downtown, so when I was allowed out it was no distance to interesting places. The grab bars in the bathroom were so useful they soon looked attractive to me. I’ll admit I even got to like the kitchenette. Because it was just a corner it was easy to get to. Its openness forced us to keep it clean, but that turned out to not be a bad situation. And after I got the plaster cast off, the pool was very handy for the exercises I was supposed to do.

Our space was so tight it was kind of like living on a boat. Or maybe like sleeping on an island after shipwreck, because we kept making trips back to the house to scavenge more clothes or books or whatever we thought we needed.

Which was part of what Mom was after. She likes it when life wakes you up. That’s one of the reasons she got rid of the car. She says living without a car is like keeping a vegan diet or being a little disabled; it makes you conscious about everyday things.

No thanks, I told her after a month in the hotel. I said I was awake enough, with the broken ankle. Even when the plaster came off it was hard to get around and easy to see how much I used to take mobility for granted. But I could live without the car. It was the house I was having nightly dreams about.

So was Brian. So was Mom. We were all dreaming about the house. Mom said maybe houses are more important even than true love. She said little girls dream about the palace as much as the prince, and little boys fight battles over nothing but territory: more house stuff. I even heard her telling her boyfriend Ward that real estate is the only justification for marriage. Ward wanted to get married but Mom didn’t, and I heard her argue that marriage is an advantage if the couple is struggling to survive but a limitation if they already have the creature comforts. She said “creature comforts” really means “house,” because most of us have the food and clothing items. After all, the first thing a couple aims at is a house.