My daughter asked, “Where can we sleep?” while a paramedic held her baby brother outside our burned home. Nine months after burying my husband, I had no reply to give my little girl. Then the man reached into his pocket, and I had to decide whether to take what he held out.
Paisley still had her arms around my neck, though she was getting too heavy for me.
If I lowered her, she’d have to stand barefoot beside me.
So I held on.
Across from us, my son slept against the paramedic’s shirt, inside his open jacket.
The man kept his palm behind Landon’s head whenever somebody passed close.
I couldn’t remember giving him permission to take my baby.
I couldn’t remember passing Landon over at all.
“He’s all right,” he said when I reached toward them.
“Can I have him?”
“Of course.”
But Paisley tightened her legs around me, and my outstretched hand stayed empty.
He stepped closer so I could touch my son’s cheek.
Warm.
That frightened me almost as much as everything else.
He was warm, asleep, doing what he’d done yesterday, while I couldn’t get us back to yesterday.
“His name’s Landon,” I said.
The man bent his head until his mouth touched my son’s forehead.
“I’m Yuri.”
Someone behind us asked whether there was anybody I could call in Racine.
I gave them my husband’s name before I stopped myself.
Paisley lifted her face.
“Dariusz can’t come, Mommy.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
She pressed her forehead into my neck again, and I held her so hard she complained.
I loosened my arms.
“I’m sorry.”
Our rent had been paid through the month.
I’d worried about the NEXT month while brushing Paisley’s hair that morning.
Now I kept trying to remember whether her shoes had been beside the bed or underneath it.
As though I could fetch them.
Yuri shifted Landon higher and reached into his jacket.
“There’s somewhere you can go,” he said.
A gray fob dangled from his finger.
I stared at it without reaching.
“Where?”
“My place.”
I pulled Paisley closer again.
He stopped moving toward me.
“I’ve got a studio I don’t use much,” he said. “You can lock it from inside.”
“What about you?”
“I stay with my mother most nights.”
Paisley raised her head at the word mother.
“Is there a bed?”
“There’s somewhere you can lie down.”
She turned toward me before he finished answering.
That was the part I couldn’t stand.
She was waiting for me to say YES, as though I had another place in mind.
“For tonight?” I said.
“For however many nights you need.”
I kept staring at the fob.
He lowered it.
“Brandi,” I said, because he’d given me his name and I hadn’t given him mine.
“All right, Brandi.”
“What do you want?”
The question sounded ugly, but I couldn’t take it back.
He glanced toward my daughter and then back at me.
“For you to get some sleep.”
I looked away from his hand.
“People don’t just hand over their homes.”
“My mother did.”
His thumb moved along the fob’s edge.
“I’ve slept somewhere because somebody made room.”
I couldn’t ask him anything else without crying.
We waited beside the ambulance bay until another crew took over, and he brought his estate car around.
Paisley refused to let go until I promised I’d sit beside her.
Yuri helped us settle in, then passed Landon back to me while we waited for a borrowed child seat.
My son caught a finger in my sleeve.
I kept that sleeve pulled over my hand the whole way.
At the studio, I asked Yuri to show me the inside lock.
He did it without asking why.
I tried it myself.
Then I tried it again.
Paisley crawled beneath the duvet without taking off her clothes.
“Do we have to give this back tomorrow?”
“The bed stays here,” Yuri said.
She looked at me.
“Can WE stay here?”
“Tonight,” I said. “We’re staying tonight.”
That was all I could promise without my mouth starting to shake.
Yuri brought a travel cot from a cupboard and checked its catches before I put Landon down.
My son rolled toward the side nearest me.
I stayed bent over him after he’d settled.
“The fridge has food,” Yuri said.
“I’ll replace it.”
“Eat it first.”
He took some notes out of his coat, held together by a money clip.
I backed away before he could offer them.
He stopped.
“I don’t have anything to pay you with.”
“I’m not asking for payment.”
“I mean later, too.”
“Brandi, KEEP IT.”
The notes stayed between his fingers.
I could hear Paisley moving under the duvet.
She was awake, listening to her mother argue against the money that could buy her shoes.
I took it.
Yuri turned toward the door before I could find a way to thank him.
“You can call if the cot gives you trouble,” he said.
After he left, I stood beside the lock with the cash pressed against my leg.
I couldn’t make myself put it down.
Eleven days later, I started folding sheets at a care home.
Theresa, who lived nearby, watched the children while I worked.
I asked her twice whether Yuri had arranged to pay her.
“He asked me to come meet you,” she said. “We worked out the rest ourselves.”
I still counted my notes after every shift.
Some mornings I counted them before leaving, too.
Yuri came by with things we’d mentioned needing, and sometimes he only came to ask whether the heating worked.
He always knocked.
Even when Paisley called through the door for him to come in, he waited for me.
Once he brought Landon a cloth rabbit.
Its ears flopped over its face, and my son kept pushing them away before trying to chew them.
Paisley wanted to know why its tail was crooked.
“Probably sat on it,” Yuri said.
She inspected it again, as though that might be true.
I laughed before I meant to.
Then I had to turn toward the sink.
The following visit, Paisley stood in front of him before he’d taken off his jacket.
“Why do you keep bringing us things?”
He crouched beside her.
“Did I bring too much?”
“No. But we haven’t bought you anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
She caught his sleeve when he started to stand.
“Why?”
He stayed down beside her.
“Someone carried me, too.”
She looked toward Landon in the cot.
“When you were little?”
Yuri nodded.
“Did your mommy say thank you?”
“She still does.”
I folded the dish towel again, although it was already folded.
Later, while putting milk away, I caught the corner of a photograph beneath the refrigerator magnet.
It slipped sideways, and I reached to straighten it.
Yuri stood in the picture beside a woman in a paramedic’s uniform.
His face looked younger, but his hand rested around her shoulder the way it rested behind Landon’s head.
Deep lines fanned out beside both of their smiles.
“That’s your mother?”
Yuri put down the rabbit he’d retrieved from under the cot.
“Irma,” he said.
I held the photograph by its edge.
“She’s the person who helped you?”
His fingers stayed on the rabbit’s ear.
“SHE CARRIED ME OUT,” he said. “She became my mother afterward.”
The refrigerator magnet
“Out of a fire?”
“Yes.”
I slid the photograph beneath the magnet. It took two tries to get the corner flat.
“How old were you?”
“A little older than Paisley.”
My daughter stood beside the cot. Her hand stopped halfway through the mesh, where she’d been trying to retrieve Landon’s sock.
“Where was your other mommy?”
“She couldn’t come home.”
Paisley came to me. I put my hand on her back.
Yuri stayed beside the refrigerator.
“Did Irma know you before?” I said.
“No.”
I wanted him to sit down and explain every day between being carried outside and standing beside that woman in a photograph. I wanted to ask nothing.
Paisley pressed her face against my side.
“Could we talk about it another time?” I said.
“Of course.”
He picked up his jacket.
That made me feel worse. He’d answered something I asked, and now he was leaving his own home because I couldn’t manage the answer.
“You don’t have to go.”
“I’ve got a shift.”
He checked the rabbit’s ear before putting it beside Landon. My son grabbed it with the enthusiasm he usually reserved for things nobody wanted in his mouth.
At the door, Yuri turned.
“Tomorrow evening? I can come by after work.”
I nodded.
He waited.
“Yes,” I said. “Tomorrow’s fine.”
After he left, Paisley wanted to see the photograph again. I lifted her high enough to look without taking it down.
“She looks like she tells him to put his coat on.”
That was exactly how she looked.
I almost laughed. Then Paisley touched my cheek.
“You’re still our mommy here, right?”
The clothes on the bed
That evening, I spotted Paisley folding her borrowed clothes on top of the duvet.
“I’m still your mommy,” I said again.
“I know.”
She pressed a sleeve flat with both hands. She’d seen me do it before work, trying to make a shirt look less borrowed by removing a wrinkle.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting ready.”
“For bed?”
“For when he comes tomorrow.”
She had put her shoes beside the folded clothes, toes toward the door.
I sat down. She moved the stack out of my way with the care of somebody who expected an inspection.
“Yuri isn’t coming to take these.”
“I know.”
“What are we getting ready for, then?”
She shrugged.
There were only a few clothes. She had managed to make them look like enough to leave with.
Before the fire, Dariusz’s side of our bed had become the place I folded laundry. Nine months of stacking shirts where he used to sleep, then moving them before Paisley came in. Once she’d put her pajamas there and said Daddy could hold them until bedtime. I hadn’t corrected her.
Now she was putting everything we had into one pile.
“Sweetheart, we aren’t leaving tomorrow.”
“Where are we going after?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She picked at the edge of a sleeve.
“Can we leave this ready?”
I wanted to say no. I wanted to pull every shirt apart and fill a drawer as though I could furnish confidence.
Instead, I helped her finish folding.
Landon began complaining from the cot. His sock was missing again. My son had survived losing a home and remained committed to his original work: removing socks.
I brought him onto the bed between us.
Paisley gave him one of her sleeves to hold.
“Does Yuri sleep at his mommy’s because we’re here?”
“He said he stayed there before.”
“Does she know?”
“I think so.”
That answer sounded poor even to me.
Paisley looked toward the photograph.
“Maybe she needs him back.”
I lifted Landon before he could roll onto the clothes.
“We can ask.”
“Not if it makes him sad.”
She was seven. I was supposed to be the one sorting which questions were safe.
I put the clothes in a drawer while she held her brother’s hand. She let me, but she kept her shoes by the bed.
When she lay down, she moved over to make room for me.
I stayed upright after both children slept, with the remaining notes in my lap.
Tomorrow, I would offer them back.
I counted enough for shoes, food, and the bus. There wasn’t another pile.
The money clip
The next evening, Yuri arrived while Theresa was helping Paisley get Landon’s arms into his sleeves.
He’d chosen to keep both elbows bent. Four adults could have written a report about it without improving matters.
“Straighten your arm,” Paisley said.
Landon laughed.
“He thinks this is entertainment,” Theresa said.
I opened the door wider for Yuri, then stepped outside with him.
“I’ve got something for you.”
He looked at the notes in my hand.
“Did something happen?”
“No.”
I held them out.
“Brandi.”
“I haven’t used all of it.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“I mean I can manage now. I’ve started working.”
He didn’t take the money.
“Have you been paid?”
“Not yet.”
“Then what are you managing with?”
I wanted to say that was none of his business. Unfortunately, my answer was standing in front of me with his hands in his jacket pockets.
“I’ll work it out.”
He looked toward the open door.
“Can we go inside?”
“I’d rather do this here.”
“All right.”
That annoyed me too. He wouldn’t argue where I wanted an argument, and he wouldn’t take the money where I wanted a receipt.
“I need to know what this is,” I said.
“The money?”
“All of it.”
He took his hands out of his pockets.
“You needed somewhere to sleep. I had somewhere.”
“And now?”
“You still need somewhere.”
Theresa appeared in the doorway with Landon on her hip.
“Your little supervisor says he needs a different shirt.”
I couldn’t look at her. I kept the money out between Yuri and me until my arm began to ache.
“Please take it.”
“What will you use tomorrow?”
“I’ll ask Theresa for another day before I pay her.”
Theresa shifted Landon.
“No, you won’t.”
I turned.
“I wasn’t asking you now.”
“You just did, with him standing there.”
Heat went up my neck.
Yuri stepped back. Theresa stayed in the doorway.
“I’ll keep the children for the shifts we agreed,” she said. “You can pay me when your wages come. Same as we said.”
“I know.”
“But don’t make yourself short to hand him that.”
I wanted her to go inside. She’d been kind to me, and now she was being kind in a way that made me want to shut a door.
Yuri lowered his eyes to the notes.
“Did you buy yourself shoes?”
“Mine are fine.”
I’d been wearing the pair Theresa found for me. My heel slipped unless I curled my toes.
“They’re fine,” I said again.
He didn’t look down. I was grateful for that much.
“I won’t take your food money.”
“Then tell me when you will take something.”
He hesitated.
There. At last, something I could recognize. A pause before a condition.
“When you can give it without counting what you won’t eat.”
Theresa went back inside. I could hear Paisley telling Landon to stop licking the sleeve.
I put the notes away.
Yuri reached for the door, then stopped short of touching it.
“Can I come in?”
I moved aside.
He waited until I said yes.
That night, I kept the money. I also kept his hesitation, turning it over long after the room went dark.
Paisley’s half of the duvet
On the evening of my first payday, I spread the notes across the bed after the children settled.
Theresa sat beside me. We’d agreed she’d stay until I got home, and I had asked her for ten more minutes.
She counted her payment once, folded it, and put it away.
“Thank you.”
I loved her a little for making it that simple.
Then I moved the rest into groups.
Food. Bus fare. Things for Landon.
I put a note aside for Yuri, took it back, and put it aside again.
Theresa rubbed her knee.
“You’ve moved that one more than you’ve moved yourself.”
“I could take another shift.”
“You could.”
“Would you have them?”
“Sometimes.”
I looked up.
“Not every time,” she said. “I’m sixty-three, Brandi. Your son thinks my lap comes with a climbing wall.”
“I know. I didn’t mean every time.”
I had meant every time.
She touched the smallest pile.
“Is this for somewhere else?”
“Eventually.”
“And this?”
“Yuri.”
She didn’t say anything.
I pulled the note back.
“There. Happy?”
“No.”
It came out sharper than anything she’d said to me before.
“You’re cross because I won’t tell you the money’s enough,” she said.
I bent over the notes. I wanted Dariusz beside me so badly that I could scarcely make sense of the numbers. He wouldn’t have made them larger. He would have sat there while I counted.
Theresa moved closer.
“I can stay another few minutes.”
“I don’t need you to.”
“All right.”
She stood. I hated myself before she reached the door.
“Theresa.”
She turned.
“I do.”
She came back and sat down.
We counted again. The total behaved exactly as badly the second time.
Behind us, Paisley pushed the duvet away.
“I can stay with Landon.”
“No, sweetheart.”
“I know where his things are.”
“I know you do.”
She sat upright.
“Then you can go to work more.”
Theresa stood to go to her, but I put my hand out.
“Let me.”
I sat on Paisley’s half of the bed. She moved over automatically, making space for me in the little space she’d claimed.
“Landon’s my responsibility, Paisley, not yours.”
“I’m good with him.”
“You’re very good with him.”
“Then why?”
“Because you’re seven.”
Her face folded.
I put my arms around her.
She cried into my work shirt. I could still smell the laundry room on it, and I wanted to tear the thing off. I’d been so pleased to come home with wages. I’d expected to show her something had improved.
“I can help,” she said.
“You already do.”
“Not enough.”
Theresa turned toward the sink. She gave us that much privacy in a room with nowhere to go.
I held Paisley until she stopped crying.
Then she slid off the bed, went to the cot, and lifted the rabbit from beside her sleeping brother.
She brought it to me.
“We can give this one back. He can use my sleeve.”
I put the rabbit behind me.
“No.”
“But we didn’t buy it.”
“It’s his.”
“Like the bed?”
I couldn’t answer quickly enough.
She went back under the duvet and turned toward the wall.
The money stayed on the bed between Theresa and me.
The inside lock
The following evening, I asked Yuri to come without bringing anything.
He arrived empty-handed.
I had practiced what I meant to say while folding sheets. In the laundry room, it sounded sensible. In front of a man who’d held my baby while I couldn’t, it sounded like I was reading from a box of bad ideas.
“We need an end date.”
He stood just inside the door.
“For staying?”
“Yes.”
Paisley was with Theresa next door. I’d asked for half an hour. Landon slept in the cot with the rabbit under one arm.
“What date do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where would you go?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Yuri took his jacket off and folded it over his arm.
“You can stay while you work that out.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s still true.”
I flattened my thumb against the fob.
“Every time you come here, I have to make sure everything’s clean. I have to remember what you brought so I can thank you for the right thing.”
“Stop worrying, Brandi, about cleaning.”
“I know what you say.”
He stopped.
That was the worst of it. He hadn’t given me a reason to distrust him. I was standing in his home telling him his word hadn’t been enough.
“I can’t do this forever,” I said.
“Have I been coming too often?”
“No.”
“Would you rather I called?”
“No.”
He put the jacket back on.
“Tell me what would help.”
I wanted an answer I could afford.
Instead, I said, “I need to know my children are mine.”
He moved his hand away from the cot.
I’d done that. He’d been about to pick up the rabbit from the floor, and I’d made him pull back.
“They are,” he said.
“I heard what you said about your mother.”
He looked toward the photograph.
“I didn’t mean we would do that.”
“I know.”
But my face was wet.
He stayed where he was.
“Brandi, I don’t want to take your children.”
I covered my mouth. I hadn’t said the thought plainly, and hearing it made me ashamed.
“I’m sorry.”
“All right.”
“No, it isn’t.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, far enough from me that I could move wherever I wanted.
I stayed by the lock.
“Dariusz died,” I said. “Then our home went. Now Paisley’s offering to raise her brother so I can afford to keep us together.”
Yuri bent forward.
“She said that?”
“She tried to give the rabbit back.”
His hands closed around the jacket on his knees.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then he stood.
“I can stop coming by. Theresa can call me if anything needs fixing.”
That should have made things easier.
He reached for the door.
I pictured Paisley waiting to tell him something, then asking whether he was coming tomorrow. I pictured giving her one more answer with no date in it.
He was offering exactly what I’d made it sound as though I wanted.
“Wait.”
His hand stayed on the handle.
I couldn’t make myself ask him to stay. I couldn’t let him leave like that.
So I asked for the person in the photograph.
“Could I meet your mother?”
Irma’s coat
The next afternoon, Irma stood outside the studio with her coat over her arm.
Yuri was beside her.
“Brandi?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Irma.”
I nearly said I knew. There was a picture of her above our milk. We’d reached an odd stage of acquaintance.
“Come in.”
She handed me her coat because I held out my hand, then waited while I worked out where to put it.
Yuri stayed by the door.
“Both of you,” I said.
Theresa had brought the children back a few minutes earlier. She sat on the bed with Landon while Paisley stood beside me.
“You’re the mommy in the picture,” Paisley said.
“Yes.”
“Did you know we’d been sleeping here?”
“I did.”
Paisley looked up at me.
Irma bent enough to meet her eyes.
“Yuri said you were here with your mother and your brother.”
“Did you need him at your house?”
“Sometimes. He’s been there.”
“Did we take his bed?”
“No.”
Paisley’s fingers loosened around mine.
Irma straightened, and I offered her the chair.
“I asked him if you could come.”
“He told me.”
“I’ve been making a mess of this.”
She looked around the room.
“I’ve seen worse.”
I laughed, then cried. A nuisance of a combination. I couldn’t get a proper word through either one.
Yuri stayed near the door until his mother pointed at the space beside Theresa.
“Sit down. You’re making me feel as though I’ve come to inspect the place.”
He sat.
I pulled the remaining notes from my pocket.
“I keep trying to give these back.”
Irma looked at Yuri.
“Did you take them?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But I need to give him something.”
She held her hand out.
For one second, I thought she meant the money.
Then she took my hand instead.
“What did you ask him before you came here?”
“Whether we could stay the night.”
“What else?”
I looked at Yuri.
“What he wanted.”
He nodded.
Irma kept hold of my hand.
“He asked me that too.”
Yuri rubbed his forehead.
“Mom.”
“You did.”
“I remember.”
She turned back to me.
“He wanted to know what chores there were before he’d put his clothes away.”
I looked at the drawer behind her.
“Did you give him some?”
“Later. He was very disappointing with a vacuum.”
Yuri gave a small laugh.
Irma’s thumb moved over my hand.
“That first night, I wanted him to tell me if he needed the light left on.”
The space beside Theresa
That same afternoon, I sat on the floor because there wasn’t another chair.
Paisley lowered herself beside me.
Irma started to get up, but I stopped her.
“I’m fine here.”
I wasn’t fine in any useful sense. But the floor was acceptable.
“Did you think she might send you away?” I said to Yuri.
“Yes.”
“Even after she said you could stay?”
“Yes.”
His mother kept her eyes on him.
“What changed it?”
He reached down for the rabbit Landon had dropped beside Theresa’s shoe.
“I was sick one night.”
Irma shook her head.
“You were sick all night.”
“I tried to clean it before I woke her.”
“And made a much bigger job.”
Paisley leaned against my arm.
“Were you in trouble?”
“No,” Yuri said. “She was cross because I hadn’t called her.”
“I’d have preferred fewer sheets to wash,” Irma said.
I looked down at my daughter.
“You can always wake me.”
“I know.”
“I mean even when I’ve been at work.”
She nodded without looking up.
Yuri turned the rabbit over in his hands.
“I asked if I could stay after that.”
“After being sick?” I said.
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Irma answered.
“I said the bed was stripped, so he’d have to put up with mine while I changed it.”
There was a small laugh from Theresa.
I couldn’t join her.
“You didn’t make him ask again?”
“I wish I’d known how many times he was asking without saying it.”
Yuri looked at his mother.
“You couldn’t know everything.”
“No. But I could’ve given you a drawer sooner.”
The clothes. Paisley folding every borrowed sleeve so we could leave without causing work.
I pulled my daughter onto my lap. She was too big to fit the way she once had, but we made an arrangement involving one knee and most of my arm.
“These are your clothes,” I said. “We don’t have to return them.”
“The shoes too?”
“The shoes too.”
She looked at Yuri.
“And his rabbit?”
“Especially his rabbit,” Yuri said. “I don’t want that back now. He’s eaten half an ear.”
Landon reached toward it.
Theresa gave him back to me, and Paisley shifted to make space.
I had both children against me again. This time, there was a bed behind us, and I knew how the door locked.
I looked at Yuri.
“I can’t pay for this yet.”
“I know.”
“I need you to tell me if that changes. Before it changes.”
“I will.”
“And I need to stop saying we’re staying one more night.”
He put the rabbit into Landon’s hand.
“Then stop.”
It sounded almost rude. I loved him for not dressing it up.
Irma leaned forward.
“Would a month help? A whole month, Brandi, without asking once?”
I opened my mouth.
Yuri spoke first.
“More than that. But we can start there.”
“A month,” I said.
Paisley sat up.
“All the nights?”
“All the nights.”
Her face crumpled again, and this time I didn’t try to stop her crying. I put my cheek against her hair and held on.
Theresa wiped her face with the heel of her hand.
“Well,” she said. “Good thing nobody wore anything fancy.”
I laughed into Paisley’s hair.
Yuri kept his eyes on Landon until I could speak.
“What did your mother mean, she still says thank you?”
He looked at Irma.
She answered him instead of me.
“You know.”
He shook his head.
“Tell her.”
Irma rested her hand on his sleeve.
“He thinks I gave up a great deal.”
“You did.”
“I did some laundry, Yuri.”
“It was more than laundry.”
“Yes, it was.”
Her eyes filled. He leaned toward her.
“I wanted him there,” she said to me. “He took a long time to believe that.”
Yuri put his arm around her, just as he had in the photograph.
I kept the notes in my pocket.
When they stood to leave, I asked something I hadn’t practiced.
“Would you both come back?”
Irma reached for her coat.
“Only if you’ll tell us when you’ve had enough.”
“I can do that.”
Theresa made a sound behind me.
“She can.”
At the door, I touched Yuri’s arm.
“Come back without anything.”
He looked at the rabbit in Landon’s hand, then at me.
“I can do that too.”
The bottom drawer
The next morning, Paisley opened the drawer before I left for work.
She took out her clothes and spread them across the bed.
For a moment, I thought we were starting again.
Then she put her socks in one corner of the drawer and her shirts beside them.
“These don’t need to be folded on top of each other.”
“No.”
“Can Landon have the bottom one?”
“We’ll ask Yuri about his things.”
She looked up.
“Are there things in it?”
I opened it. Empty.
We both stared at that empty drawer as though it had performed a trick.
“Yes,” I said. “Landon can have it.”
She put his clothes away while I dressed him.
Theresa arrived to find me trying to put my shoes on with Landon clinging to my knee. He objected to work on principle.
“Off you go,” she said.
I picked up the fob, then put it down.
“I’ll be back after my shift.”
“I know.”
I looked at Paisley.
“We’re sleeping here tonight.”
She kept arranging her brother’s shirts.
“I know, Mommy.”
At work, I folded sheets without calculating how many more I would have to fold to earn that sentence.
By the end of the month, I had bought shoes that stayed on my feet.
I showed Theresa when she came to watch the children.
“Very grand,” she said.
“They’re plain.”
“They stay attached. That’s grand.”
When Yuri came that evening, I didn’t tell him what they’d cost. I didn’t apologize for buying them before repaying him.
He looked down once.
“Better?”
“Much.”
He brought nothing.
Paisley made him sit on the bed so she could explain why Landon’s drawer was badly arranged whenever anybody but her put the clothes away.
I stood by the refrigerator with Irma.
“Would you like me to take the picture?” she said.
“Do you want it?”
“I’ve got another.”
“Then leave it.”
She pressed the magnet against its corner.
Later, I put the notes I’d been saving back with the cash for our needs.
I counted once.
Then I shut the drawer.
Our side of the door
Six months after the fire, Yuri came over to discuss what I could afford toward staying.
I asked him to sit down before the children returned with Theresa.
“I want to pay something each month.”
He started to answer.
“Something I can actually afford,” I said. “I’ve done the counting.”
He waited while I told him.
It covered an agreed share of the studio’s costs. It left enough for the children and the bus. I hadn’t hidden the cost of shoes this time, including the alarming speed at which my son intended to need them.
Yuri nodded.
“That works.”
I had prepared an argument. It sat unused in my mouth.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“And the money from the first day?”
“You used it?”
“For what we needed.”
“Good.”
I took the fob from my pocket.
He looked at it.
“I’m not giving it back,” I said.
His smile came slowly.
“I wasn’t asking.”
When Theresa brought the children home, Paisley ran to tell him Landon had walked between them without holding on.
“Show him,” she said.
Landon sat down.
A strong performance. I respected his refusal to work on demand.
Yuri lowered himself to the floor anyway, and my son crawled into his lap.
Paisley stood beside them.
“Daddy used to carry me on his shoulders.”
“He did?” Yuri said.
“Even when Mommy said I was too big.”
“I said you were getting too big,” I said.
“That’s what I said.”
Yuri looked up at me. I could answer without turning toward the sink.
“She’d grab his ears to steer.”
Paisley laughed.
I hadn’t heard that laugh in a long time, the one with no check afterward to see whether I was all right.
That evening, Yuri went to bring Irma over while Theresa headed home.
When the knock came, Landon reached for me from the floor. I picked him up.
Paisley hooked both arms around my waist.
I could scarcely move with the pair of them attached.
“You’re going to have to lend me one leg,” I told her.
She stepped onto my foot instead.
I shuffled to the door. Through it, Irma said something about Yuri forgetting his coat, and he said it wasn’t cold.
Paisley looked up at me.
“She does tell him.”
“Apparently.”
I opened the door with my son against my collarbone and my daughter still holding on.
Yuri kept his hands in his pockets. Irma stood beside him.
“Come in,” I said. “There’s room.”
If this one stayed with you, send it to someone who once made room for you.
For more stories of people facing painful turns and finding their way through, read “The Attendant Told Me To Apologize To My Row” and “Cormac Took My Coat Before I Could Reach It”. And “My Husband Asked My Sister To Keep Me Busy” brings another family story full of difficult choices and surprises.
