My youngest daughter was in a bad mood. It was late and we were all tired and testy after dinner. Everybody wanted to collapse on the sofa, and that’s what the three kids did, leaving the remains of dinner on the table. 

My wife and I called the three kids back to clear the table and do the dishes, scolding them for slacking. 

I guess we were rather stern.

“Fine!” the youngest said, rather perturbed. “I can do the dishes tonight — and tomorrow night!” 

That irked my wife, who said, “With that attitude, you’ll be doing them for a week!”

“Fine!” the 11-year-old said, with the same bad temper and even more of a whine than before.

“A month, then,” my wife said.

“Fine!”

On it went and pretty soon the youngest had amassed five years of dishwashing duties.

“Wow,” I said to her. “Five years sure is a lot.”

She didn’t respond or look at me, and instead got busy doing the dishes on her first day of penance. I pitched in to help dry the plates and glasses as she morosely continued to wash, now struggling with the pots and pans. After a while, she turned to me and said with a bright face, “Hey, I know what I’m going to do when I grow up.”

“What?”

“I’m going to go into the business of washing plates.”

A little more than a year ago, we went as a family to my son’s graduation party, something that seems so odd today as we are stuck at home in quarantine. I remember how we ate empanadas, pizzas and potato chips, how the diplomas for finishing elementary school were handed out, followed by applause and photos. And then everybody’s attention shifted to the dance floor.

I stood back.

I’ve always liked to dance, but this was a no-alcohol affair, and that made it hard to ease into things.

My son got into it, though. The Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” came on and his teacher asked him to dance, and soon enough he was putting on the moves, with his long hair flying around like a Jim Morrison or something. 

“Y… M… C… A…” 

He hit each and every move.

This loosened things up, maybe for all of us at the party.

A conga formed, and soon enough I was pulled into the dance train behind a mother, and round we went, forwards, then backwards. I started getting into it, loosening up. I threw my arms around and shook my hips, my booty. I smiled broadly. Laughed. And let out a hoot of sorts.

That’s when I felt somebody tugging at my hand. I looked down. It was my youngest daughter. She pulled me out of the conga and off the dance floor, and she didn’t stop pulling me until we were in another room. Near the front door. Almost outside.

When we’d stopped, I caught my breath and, still smiling, looked at the 10-year-old. I was about to ask why she’d done that, but her stern face said it all. 

She told me to stay put, cool off, wait here, have a drink, unwind, catch my breath.

I did.

Then I slowly made my way back to the dance floor and stood on the sidelines to watch my son, my arms crossed. He had sway, swagger, timing. I looked at him with appreciation and thought that maybe my kids are right. All I have is the ability to embarrass them — and myself — on the dance floor, and then write a funny story about it. And so after my failed attempt at a doing a jig, I decided to stick with writing, which is what the kids told me I am better at, followed by a warning that if I dare dance again, it must not be the same city and nobody must film it. I had to swear to abide, cross my heart and all that stuff. 

We were having lunch as a family and discussing the possibility of an extension to the quarantine in Argentina, now more than a month old. What would an extension mean for us as we work or study from home, and what it could mean to our food supplies and going out to buy more, and about being safe and not catching the coronavirus.

I said that because the five of us are in such tight quarters it’s important that we don’t get on each other’s nerves. That we help around the house. That we put our clothes away (not tossed on the floor), mop, sweep, vacuum, and do the dishes. Set the table, pitch in with making meals. Unblock the toilet. Flush, even. That we don’t groan, moan, whine, bitch, plead, or call people liars, poo, or rat-bags. That we try not to annoy each other …

“That’s impossible,” the 11-year-old girl said, interrupting me and then turning to stare coldly at her older brother and sister.

Their faces fell.

My wife said, “What we can do is …”

“… use earplugs,” the youngest said.

I laughed. We all did.

Well, not all of us. As all of this transpired, my 14-year-old son sank deeper into his chair, his face dark and grave and worried.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

He looked at me, then at the others, and slowly he started to speak. 

“Guys,” he said. “If it comes to it, you know, if it does get worse … then we must promise each other than no matter what happens we will not eat each other.”

When we can, my wife and I stay in bed on the weekends, while our youngest children, ages 11 and 14, read books or, more likely, play video games in the living room or watch YouTube, and while the 17-year-old reads in her bed.

I make coffee and we sit up in bed to read.

Only that at first my wife usually reads the newspaper on her iPad, recounting the news aloud. “Hey, check this out.” I turn my head and listen, but my focus is on reading my book, so I only half listen. She then asks me questions about what she has read aloud, and I fumble at my response, and she stares at me coldly. Or I ask her to repeat the question, but that draws the same response followed by, “Why are you not listening?”

“Um – .”

I can’t think of what to say, and after a moment of tension I resume reading, and she does too. 

There’s a deathly silence.

That’s what makes me want to know what she’s reading. I ask her and she gives me the abbreviated version, without any of the initial dramatic flare, as if to indicate that after not listening to her in the first place I should mind my own business. 

I want to ask her something, anything, to break the spell so that she will talk to me heartedly, or at least call me a dumbass or something.

Then she speaks: “Coffee?”

I get out of bed and make her another cup, and bring it back.

“Thanks,” she says, taking the coffee. And then: “Be a star and fetch me my phone.”

I go.

But in the living room I call back to her for a clue on where it could be. She says it’s in her purse. 

I look around and then ask, “And where’s your purse?” 

“In the living room … or the kitchen, maybe.” 

I find it in our bedroom, under her coat on the chair that’s only purpose is to hold discarded clothes. And purses with phones at the bottom amid receipts more than a year old.

I give her the phone and she says thanks.

Then she asks for her book.

“Where is it?”

She doesn’t answer and I don’t ask for indications this time. Eventually I find it under the pillows on the sofa.

“What took you so long?” she asks

“Um – .”

She doesn’t continue her interrogation. She opens her book and starts to read, and lifts her coffee mug to her lips and takes a sip.

I stand there and think, Why do I do all this?

I ask her.

She stops reading and looks up at me and says, “Because you love me.”

I guess she has a point.

She resumes reading.

I get back in bed and start reading my book again.

She finishes her coffee and asks for another. I get out of bed and while walking to the kitchen I think that making love in the morning is a funny business. Tiring, yes, but it’s not something that I would trade for anything at all.

After three weeks of quarantine, I’m getting the itch to go for a run, a very long run. Not that we can because we are on strict stay-at-home orders in Argentina.

But if I could …

A year ago, I ran a half marathon through the forests and tundra of Tierra del Fuego, at the end of the world. It took me more than five hours to complete the race in the mountains, which is exactly what I would love to do right now. Today. Get out there and run for a breath of fresh air and to let off steam. A lot of it.

I told my son. 

“How far do you want to go?” the 14-year-old asked, looking up from his PlayStation.

“24 kilometers.”

“If that was meters, I’d run with you.”

He returned to playing his game. I went and looked out the window at the perfectly sunny autumn morning with a briskness that is so inviting, yet so out of reach.