I’ve been known to bring home strays, and apparently the trait has been passed on to my sister as well. When the University of Maine closed its campuses suddenly (on account of, what else, the coronavirus), a lot of students were left in the lurch. So my sister brought home two of her Model UN teammates. When she asked our mom for permission, Mom sighed and said, “Well, I guess this is what happens when you make it a point to model radical Christian hospitality for your kids.” And then she said of course, the boys could stay as long as they needed.

For a long while now, it’s just been me and Mom rattling around our drafty old farmhouse. Now every room has a designated purpose. The extra bedrooms have been pressed into service. (We’re still short one bed, so the guests had to draw straws as to who got the excessively lumpy pullout sofa). The kitchen has become my mom’s workspace, and not just because she has to do triple the cooking now – she’s still hard at work on her next novel. (And baking pandemic cookies.)

The dining room has been converted to The University of Maine at Buxton. That’s where we’ve placed the youths. (Nothing like having a bunch of college students in the house to make me feel old. That, and the three-day backache I had after helping them move.) The college is still having online classes, which is proving to be a bit of a challenge with our rural internet, but if you are a professor reading this, I promise these students are 100 percent dedicated to their education and are definitely not wearing pajamas to your class, no sir.

(I, of course, have set up my home office in our parlor, which is apparently the room where we decided to store all the uncomfortable furniture. It’s going great.)

My rescue dog, Janey, is just about at the end of her rope. Her duties as the household’s head of security have tripled – in addition to her usual routine of barking at squirrels and staring bravely at the mailman from the window, she is running up and down the stairs, making sure everyone is where they are supposed to be, and barking at the boys when they stand up too fast. Janey is a big fan of social distancing and she is particularly suspicious of men. On the bright side, our two cats are in hog heaven with the sudden availability of More Laps.

Having two college-aged boys around seems to be breaking even – they’re eating all our food, but they also managed to move half a cord of wood into the woodshed the afternoon before the storm. (My brother used to be the primary wood-mover, but he is down in Virginia, and since he’s in the Navy he is currently forbidden to travel.) And one of them is tall enough to fix the burned-out lightbulb at the top of the stairs. Also, when my mother and I are left alone together for too long, our brains slowly start to meld together into one person and we begin to communicate in a weird, incomprehensible twin-language like Jodie Foster in that one movie. So it’s a real treat to get some other human beings in the house.

There used to be five of us living at the house, in addition to our menagerie of pets. As you can imagine, it could get a little loud and messy, but it was also warm, and bustling, and buzzing with energy. And then my brother joined the military and moved away. And then Dad died. And then my sister went to college. And I moved out, and then back in again. I didn’t realize how quiet and empty it had gotten until the house was suddenly full of five people again.

We are living through some strange times right now, with coronavirus lurking and exploding, working from home and doing social distancing and just generally holding our breath, waiting for whatever is coming next. Waiting for it to get worse. But humans are resilient and highly social critters. We’re seeing communities coming together, staying apart, springing up wherever they are. A family is what you make it. And right now, our little family community is a mom and an older sister and three college students and some cats and a dog with anxiety. And there’s nobody else I would rather be with.

Victoria Hugo-Vidal is a Maine millennial. She can be contacted at:

themainemillennial@gmail.com

Twitter: mainemillennial