When Your Adult Child Brings Home Someone Else’s Adult Child

When perfectly sober houses start to tack on ugly extensions, or split one room into three, you know the kids are home – for good! They dart out now and then to collect mysterious packages left on the doorstep, which have come from the outside world. But at all other times, their silent presence can be taken for granted.
You can just about ask them if they’ve eaten – they flick a kindly eye on your frantic efforts to dress up leftovers. But their future plans are a state secret. ‘Buy another TV’ is the very reasonable request, when you ask for the remote.