With the car towed off to the mechanic, she hated him for a week and then it slowly abated, lost and tangled within new neurons, new electronic circuits with thoughts successfully attempting to understand his bitterness, and with new emphasis to forgive and forget. But he, on the other hand, hated her for her 7 days of cold Antarctic ponderings at the dining room table and in her director's chair. Betty wouldn't even talk to him by the orders of General Sangfroid and, finding it hard to swallow food or understand anything on the television beside images running amuck, he hated his mother with incremental emphasis and duration. Knowing this, she began to consider taking him to the airport to send him away. One cold day she was on the roof nailing a border for the wires of Christmas lights to lean on securely. She was looking out over her acres of land like a lonely Martha Stewart when she felt the need to stretch her cramped legs. She tried to call him on her cellular telephone to have him come out and hold the ladder so that she could get down. It was only after the fourth time that he bothered to answer. "Is Betty busy cooking lunch?" "Yeah, shit on a shingle." "Could you ask her to come out and hold the ladder?" "No, I couldn't. I don't want my food burnt." "You don't want your food burnt," she mocked. "That's what she was hired for: to keep my food from burning." "Your food?" "Yours too." "Well, there's got to be a reason for me having your ass around so you come out here and help me get down from here," she said. But when he finally came out and she looked down upon him she saw virulence in his sunken eyes and she wondered if he could be trusted to hold the ladder safely. She wanted to call Betty to have her come out but she knew that she would never pick up a telephone no matter how many times it rang. "Get Betty over here to hold the ladder." "No, she's busy," he said. She was surprised that he was impudent enough to address her this way in person. "Get her now!" she commanded. "Get her and then, maybe…maybe I'll come down to get you your airline ticket to Kansas." "You'll buy one?" "It is already bought. If you are eager to get rid of me I am eager to get rid of you." "Okay," he said happily. "Sure," she said acrimoniously, "if that is what you want. And if that is what you want why should I put these lights up for you?" "Yes, why do it when I don't care," he said.