My husband ordered me to miss an appointment and haul his mother’s shopping. “Your little plans can wait,” he said. He didn’t know I was collecting the papers for an inherited apartment. I paid for her ride and went anyway. By supper, his mother had found something I’d kept inside my bag.
That apartment was somewhere I could sleep without asking whether anybody needed me before I went.
I hadn’t even held its key yet.
For four years, working at home had meant being available whenever Damian decided I was.
A book proof could fill my monitor, and he’d still leave his mother’s shopping bags beside my chair.
“You’re already here,” he’d say.
Annette called the work my typing.
She’d lean past an unfinished page to ask whether I could fetch something before the shops closed.
The client waiting for that page never counted as someone waiting for ME.
On Friday, at 8:26, I had my jacket on and a blue document wallet tucked into my shoulder bag.
Damian sat at the breakfast counter with a video playing against his coffee mug.
“You’re taking Mum shopping,” he said.
I kept my fingers around the strap.
“I’ve got that appointment.”
“Your little plans can wait.”
He reached past me for the sugar without stopping the video.
I had called it a checkup because that seemed easier than explaining an appointment with an attorney.
Even that hadn’t bought me the morning.
“She wants the produce stall before it sells out,” he said. “Then collect her prescription.”
“And get everything upstairs.”
He added that part as I reached the door, as though carrying it was too obvious to mention earlier.
My appointment was at 9:40.
When I gave him the time, he rubbed his forehead as if I’d handed him another chore.
“Ring them, Katelyn. Tell them something came up.”
I stayed by the door.
Uncle Conrad had died six weeks earlier.
His studio in Utica had been the place I went on Wednesdays, usually with whatever he’d forgotten to order.
Sometimes he’d need help reading a bill.
Sometimes he’d insist the bulb was fine until I changed it and he could see his newspaper again.
He always asked whether I’d eaten before asking me to do anything.
I used to lie and say yes.
He’d make me toast anyway, then complain that the neighbor’s cat, Ida, had put paw marks across his window again.
I could sit there until my tea went cold without someone handing me an errand.
Damian never came along.
At Conrad’s wake, he’d checked his watch after thirteen minutes.
“Can we wrap this up? I’ve got things tomorrow.”
I’d left half my food.
Nine days later, Petersen called while I was correcting a page proof.
“Your uncle left the apartment to you,” she said.
I moved into the bathroom and shut the door before she finished explaining.
“To me?”
“You’re the only beneficiary named for it.”
My knees bent before I’d decided to sit, and I ended up beside the bath.
The cuff of my sleeve caught against a patch of rubbed skin on my wrist.
Annette’s detergent bottles had done that on the stairs the previous afternoon.
I’d carried the lot because she didn’t want the handles stretched.
Petersen asked whether I was still there.
“Yes,” I said. “Please keep going.”
I wrote her number on the back of an old envelope and kept it under my palm.
Then I hid it.
Anything I saved usually became something Damian had already found a use for.
A payment from a client meant WE could replace something his mother disliked.
My own plans stayed penciled in until everybody else’s were settled.
So the appointment went into my calendar as a checkup.
The papers stayed zipped inside the blue wallet.
At 8:54, Annette waited downstairs with a wheeled basket and insulated bags folded across its handle.
She pulled the handle upward when she saw me.
“Come on. We’ll miss the decent stuff.”
“I won’t be going with you.”
She kept the basket angled toward me, ready for my hand.
“Your husband said it was arranged.”
“I booked you a car. It’s paid for, and I asked for help with the shopping.”
Her mouth pressed flat.
“Did you bother telling Damian?”
“He’s upstairs. You can ask him to come.”
She looked toward our window before she answered.
That pause nearly did it.
I almost reached for the basket, because I knew what my phone would sound like if I walked away.
Then she tapped my bag.
“Whatever’s in there can wait until you’ve finished helping me.”
I pulled the strap higher.
“I need to go.”
“You’ve always got a reason lately.”
The car stopped beside us, and I checked the registration against the booking on my phone.
Annette kept her basket between herself and the door.
“I said I’d sort your ride,” I told her. “I have.”
Then I left her there.
I didn’t turn when she called my name from behind me.
In Petersen’s office, she slid the documents across her desk and waited while I read them.
Nobody reached over to move my hand toward a signature.
I asked her to explain the ownership section again.
“If my husband decides he wants it sold?”
“He can’t sell a property he doesn’t own.”
She turned the page back so I could see the name entered there.
Mine, by itself.
I traced the edge of the paper with my thumb rather than touch the printed letters.
“And being married doesn’t change that?”
“On the facts you’ve given me, this remains YOUR inherited property.”
I asked where I needed to sign.
Petersen checked the completed pages, then passed me an envelope containing Conrad’s silver key.
Its green plastic tag had a corner worn smooth from seventeen years in his pocket.
I rubbed that corner.
He’d always held the tag while he turned the key, never the metal itself.
I caught myself doing it before I put it away.
Outside, I fitted the envelope into the document wallet and zipped the shoulder bag shut.
Damian called at 10:48.
“Explain why my mother had to go shopping alone.”
“She had the car I booked.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I stopped walking while people passed on either side of me.
“My own appointment clashed with her trip, so I couldn’t go along.”
“You COULDN’T, or you didn’t feel like it?”
I pushed my thumb against the smooth corner through the bag.
“Was there a problem with the ride?”
“She’s upset. That’s the problem.”
He waited for the apology I usually put there.
I kept holding the phone.
“So now I have to deal with this because you needed a morning off?”
“I’ll be home later.”
I ended the call before I offered to collect anything on my way.
By 4:35, I was back in our kitchen with the document wallet out on the counter.
I’d opened it to put the signed copies somewhere safe.
Damian wanted to discuss his mother’s morning before I’d taken off my jacket.
I left the wallet in my bag and went to wash my hands.
When I returned, Annette occupied my work chair.
The bag lay beside her.
Its zipper was OPEN, and the blue wallet had been pulled free.
I reached for it, but my fingers stopped above the top page.
A stapled estimate covered the signed copies I’d brought home.
Across its heading were the words QUICK SALE, with an agent’s appointment slip clipped underneath.
Damian’s phone lit up beside it.
The message confirmed a viewing for 5:45 and thanked him for arranging access.
I couldn’t get my hand around the bag’s strap.
Annette stood, and something green swung beside her cheek.
Conrad’s key.
She pinched the metal between her fingers while Damian stayed beside the counter.
“You brought a property into this family,” she said. “You don’t get to keep us outside its door.”
The open bag
Annette meant that I was supposed to open Conrad’s apartment for her and an agent at 5:45. She put the appointment slip beneath my hand.
“You can explain the heating when we get there,” she said.
I pulled my signed copies out from under the estimate and put them back in the blue wallet. Every page. I checked the backs, too, because apparently washing my hands now required a security deposit.
Then I held out my palm.
“Give me the key.”
“We’re going to the same place.”
“Then you don’t need it.”
She closed her fingers.
Damian pushed himself away from the counter.
“Could you stop making everything into a confrontation?”
I kept my hand between us. Annette looked at him, and he watched my hand as though that was the part causing trouble.
“She opened my bag.”
“She was looking for the papers.”
That nearly made me laugh. He’d supplied the explanation with such confidence. A person caught taking your dinner could apparently say they were looking for food.
“Who arranged this?”
“Mum spoke to someone. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”
“I know what I’m dealing with.”
Annette tapped the estimate.
“Well, we don’t. And we’re your family.”
The top page gave a suggested price of $112,000. Under that was a lower figure, partly covered by the slip. I reached to move it.
Damian took the estimate.
“Let’s not start throwing numbers around before we’ve seen it.”
“You’ve made an appointment to sell something you haven’t seen?”
“Nobody’s sold anything.”
He was careful with that sentence. He said it twice.
I zipped the wallet and put it inside my bag. This time I kept the strap over my shoulder.
Annette lowered the key to her side.
“After this morning, you could at least do one thing without making us beg.”
My hand was still out.
Damian stepped between it and his mother.
“She’ll keep it until we get there.”
My screen
At 4:40, I went to my desk, and Damian followed.
My email was open behind the book proof. Petersen’s appointment confirmation filled the screen. The subject line included Conrad’s address.
I’d left the account open that morning. Damian knew my computer password because he’d once needed to print a return label.
Apparently a return label came with visiting rights to the rest of my life.
“You read my email.”
“I needed to find out what was going on.”
“What time?”
“Does it matter?”
Annette stood in the doorway, still holding the key.
“After lunch,” she said. “He was concerned about you.”
I turned toward her.
“Concerned enough to get a price?”
She looked at Damian instead.
He reached around me to close the email. I put my hand on the mouse.
Four years earlier, at this same desk, I’d shown him the first book with my name on its credits page. He’d kissed the top of my head and said, “Look at you.” Then his mother had called about a delivery, and he’d passed me the phone. I’d taken it with one finger still marking my name.
Now there was an estimate beside my keyboard, printed from my machine.
“Who asked for the price?”
“Mum knows an agent,” Damian said. “Leslie. She’s helped her look at places before.”
“I said it might be worth a conversation,” Annette said.
She’d been looking for somewhere smaller. I knew that much. On Wednesdays, she’d sometimes asked whether Conrad had stairs, whether his heating cost much, whether someone else cleaned the building entrance.
I’d answered while putting her groceries away.
“You could have asked me.”
“You were out all day,” Damian said.
He pointed at the email as though it had personally endured my absence.
His house was the home we’d married in. I’d moved my desk into its kitchen because there was nowhere else to work. Each month I sent him $860 toward household bills, then did my work between whatever his mother needed.
I wanted to ask what that money bought besides a place to leave my shoes.
Instead, I saved the proof, closed my email and changed the password.
Damian leaned against the desk.
“Now you’re locking me out of things?”
The estimate stayed beneath his hand.
Leslie’s number
At 4:50, Annette called Leslie from the kitchen.
“We’ve got the key,” she said. “Everything’s fine for quarter to six.”
I stepped beside her.
“Put it on speaker.”
Annette turned away.
“There’s no need. I’m only confirming.”
“Then confirm it where I can hear.”
Damian made a small movement toward me, the same one he’d make if I were about to knock over a glass.
Annette pressed the screen.
A woman’s voice came through.
“And the owner will be there?”
“Of course,” Annette said. “We’re all coming.”
“I’m the owner,” I said. “This is Katelyn.”
“Good. I wanted to speak to you directly.”
Annette lifted the phone.
“We’re standing right beside each other.”
“Have you listed my apartment?” I said.
“No. Nothing’s been signed. This is a visit to look at it and discuss whether there’s an agreement.”
“There isn’t.”
Damian put his hand over the lower edge of the phone.
“We haven’t discussed it yet,” he said to me.
I moved his hand.
“I haven’t agreed to sell.”
“Then we can talk about that when you get there,” Leslie said. “You don’t have to sign anything.”
Annette ended the call before I could ask another question.
“There. Nobody’s forcing you.”
I wanted to take the phone and call back. Cancel the whole thing. Put the kettle on because I still hadn’t eaten, which would be a fine way to celebrate inheriting the home of a man who’d tried to feed me every Wednesday.
But Damian was holding the estimate, and Annette was holding my key.
If I canceled, they’d still have both.
“Give me those,” I said.
Damian lifted the papers away from the edge of the counter.
“You’re getting yourself worked up over a conversation.”
“Then let me read what you’re discussing.”
“We’ll read it together.”
He folded the estimate and put it in his pocket.
Annette rubbed her thumb along the green tag.
“The place won’t be easy to sell with all his things in it.”
“Don’t touch his things.”
“Somebody has to sort them.”
“I will.”
“When? You never seem to have time.”
My computer made the sound of an incoming work message. All three of us turned toward it.
Annette gave a little shrug.
“There you go.”
I went to the desk and typed that the corrected proof would arrive by eleven. I deleted “family emergency.” It wasn’t an emergency to either of the people making it happen.
Then I took the appointment slip from the counter. Leslie’s number was printed across the bottom.
Damian held out his hand.
“I’ll keep that,” I said.
Annette reached for her coat.
“I’d like to get there before the agent.”
The space beside my desk
At 5:00, Damian went upstairs for his car keys. I followed him into our bedroom.
With his mother downstairs, I thought I might still get one sentence answered without her improving it.
He opened a drawer.
“You’ve made her feel like a thief.”
“She took something from my bag.”
“She’s my mother.”
“Then get it back.”
He found his keys and kept searching the drawer. There was nothing else he needed. I stood beside the bed while he moved old receipts from one side to the other.
“Damian.”
“What?”
“Tell her she can’t take my apartment.”
He pushed the drawer shut.
“Nobody’s taking anything.”
“Then say it downstairs.”
He sat on the bed and rubbed both hands over his face.
I sat beside him. That was the part I hated later, how quickly I tried to make it easier for him.
“I needed that appointment,” I said. “I needed one thing to happen without asking your mother first.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
He lowered his hands.
“I called it a checkup because I thought you’d let me go.”
“You hear yourself?”
“I do.”
He looked toward the door.
From downstairs, Annette called his name.
“One minute, Mum.”
He said it gently. I could’ve used some of that gentleness. There was plenty available; I was sitting beside the wrong person to receive it.
“I’d have told you tonight,” I said.
“After you’d done everything behind my back.”
“I wasn’t asking permission.”
He stood.
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? You get a little property and suddenly you’re making plans without me.”
I wanted to tell him I’d been making plans with him for four years. Most of them involved when his mother wanted to leave the house.
Instead, I asked, “What did you tell Leslie?”
“That we’d be reasonable.”
“What did you tell your mother?”
“That you weren’t going to leave her struggling while you sat on an empty apartment.”
I stood, too.
The bed was between us now.
“She’s got a home.”
“She wants something easier.”
“So did Conrad. I still asked before I changed a light bulb.”
Damian picked up my overnight bag from the wardrobe floor and dropped it on the bed.
“If you’re that desperate for somewhere else to go, take this.”
For a second I couldn’t move my hands.
I’d packed that bag for weekends with him. I’d put his socks in its outside pocket because he always forgot them. One was still there, rolled into a ball.
I took it out and laid it on his pillow.
“Do you mean that?”
“Don’t twist what I’m saying.”
“Tell me what you’re saying.”
He glanced at the doorway again.
“If you walk into that apartment tonight and embarrass my mother, don’t expect to come back here like nothing happened.”
I put underwear in the bag. Then a clean shirt.
He stayed beside the door.
“You’re actually doing this?”
“You gave me the bag.”
“Oh, come on, Katelyn.”
He reached for its handle. I moved it onto the bed.
The sound from downstairs came again.
“Damian, we’ll be late.”
“I’m coming.”
He waited one more second, long enough for me to stop him.
I wanted to. That was the humiliating part. With my clothes lying between us, I still wanted him to put down his keys and say he’d gone too far.
He went downstairs.
A minute later, his car pulled away with my key inside it.
Conrad’s doorway
At 5:32, I reached the studio with my shoulder bag and the overnight bag.
I’d taken a car rather than follow Damian down the stairs and ask for a seat. That cost money I hadn’t intended to spend. So would everything else after it.
The apartment door was open.
Annette’s wheeled basket stood just inside, beside Conrad’s armchair. She’d brought it in Damian’s car. His place had a lift, one of the questions she’d asked me while I carried her detergent upstairs.
She was opening a cupboard.
“Those are his plates,” I said.
“I can see that.”
Damian stood at the window.
“I didn’t know it got this much light.”
“You never came.”
He let the curtain fall.
Annette shut the cupboard.
“We’ve only just arrived.”
She’d put the silver key on the kitchen counter. I crossed the room and picked it up.
Neither of them moved quickly enough to stop me.
I fitted it into the inside of the door, turned it and turned it back. The lock worked. My hand worked, too, although I had to try twice to pull the key out.
I put it in my trouser pocket.
Annette looked at the overnight bag.
“What’s that for?”
“I’m staying.”
She laughed once.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t sleep here tonight.”
Conrad’s bed was made. His reading glasses still sat on the shelf beside it. I’d spent the afternoon after the funeral washing his sheets because I couldn’t sit through another person telling me he’d had a good life.
“The bed’s ready,” I said.
Damian came away from the window.
“We said we’d talk.”
“No. You said not to come back.”
“I said if you caused a scene.”
Annette lowered herself into the armchair.
“Well, don’t cause one, then.”
I put my bags on the bed. There wasn’t another room to disappear into. She could see every movement from Conrad’s chair.
That was what nearly finished me. I’d pictured coming here alone, taking off my shoes, perhaps crying somewhere nobody would ask how long I intended to carry on.
Instead, his home was hosting another discussion about whether I was being helpful enough.
Annette put her hand on the armrest.
“This will need to go. There’s no room to get around it.”
“It’s staying.”
“You’re being sentimental.”
“Yes.”
She looked at Damian.
“Can you talk to her?”
He stood beside the bed, between me and the bags.
“Put them in the car for now.”
“No.”
“We don’t need Leslie walking into this.”
“Then you should’ve brought back the key.”
He picked up the overnight bag.
I took its other handle.
We stood there holding it between us. The zip hadn’t closed all the way, and a sleeve hung out. I wanted to pull hard enough to make him stumble. Instead, I opened my hand beneath the bag.
“Put it down.”
“Just until the appointment’s over.”
“Put it on the bed.”
He let go.
My clean shirt fell onto the floor.
Annette made a sound with her tongue.
“Look what you’ve done now.”
I bent to pick it up. Tears dropped onto the sleeve. I folded it anyway, badly, with one cuff trapped inside.
Damian said my name.
I didn’t answer.
At 5:43, someone knocked on the open door.
Annette stood and smoothed her coat.
“Please don’t spoil this for me,” she said.
The lower figure
Leslie came in at 5:45 with a copy of the same estimate.
She introduced herself to me first. Annette stepped beside her and pointed toward the window.
“It gets more light than the photographs suggest.”
I stayed by the bed.
“Before you look around, I need to see the whole estimate.”
Damian pulled his copy from his pocket.
“Fine. Since that’s what we’re doing.”
He handed it over.
The suggested sale price was $112,000. The figure beneath it was $72,000, marked as a proposed family purchase.
Annette’s name appeared beside it.
I read that line twice.
“You’re buying it?”
She looked at Leslie, then at me.
“That’s what we’re here to discuss.”
“You told me you wanted to know what we were dealing with.”
“We did,” Damian said.
I held the page toward him.
“Forty thousand dollars less.”
“There wouldn’t be all the expense of an ordinary sale.”
“Forty thousand?”
Leslie set her bag beside her feet.
“That lower figure came from Annette. It isn’t my valuation.”
Annette’s face changed.
“Well, you knew it was family.”
“I knew you wanted help making an offer.”
Damian reached toward the paper.
“Can we avoid getting caught up in figures before we’ve talked?”
I kept it.
For the whole hour, I’d thought they wanted to turn Conrad’s home into money they could spend. Annette had been checking his cupboards because she intended to put her own plates in them.
Her place would be sold. She’d buy mine for less and keep the difference.
The questions about his lift. The heating. Whether the building entrance got cleaned.
All of them had come while my hands were full of Annette’s shopping.
“What did they tell you I’d agreed to?” I said.
Leslie looked at Damian.
He shook his head once.
I pulled Conrad’s chair away from the wall and sat down.
“Tell me.”
Leslie kept her eyes on him.
“That helping Annette was your idea.”
The family price
Annette sat on the edge of the bed beside my overnight bag.
“That’s what he told me, too.”
Damian put his hands on his hips.
“I said you’d want to help. That’s different.”
“No,” she said. “You said she’d be glad to keep it among family.”
Leslie remained by the door. I wanted her to stay exactly there, close enough to hear, far enough away that neither of them could make this her problem.
“Did I offer it?” I said.
Damian looked at the estimate.
“We hadn’t worked everything out.”
“Did I offer it?”
“You’d just inherited a property outright. Mum’s been talking about moving for months. I thought there was a sensible way of doing it.”
“Did I?”
“No. Not in those words.”
Annette pulled my bag away from her knee.
“You said she’d mentioned me.”
“I said she knows you’ve been looking.”
“You said she wanted me to have first refusal.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I was trying to get everybody in one room.”
“Here we are,” I said.
Nobody moved.
Then Annette stood.
“You could have told me that before I made an offer.”
Damian’s mouth opened, but she kept going.
“I spoke to Leslie. I gave her the number. You let me sit there thinking your wife had suggested this.”
He turned toward me.
“Are you happy now?”
I put the estimate across my knees.
“No.”
“Because this is exactly what you do. One wrong word, and suddenly everybody’s against everybody.”
Leslie picked up her bag.
“I can leave you to discuss this.”
“Please stay a minute,” I said. “You were told I was selling. I want you to hear my answer.”
Annette faced me.
“At least listen to the offer.”
“I’ve read it.”
“You didn’t pay anything for this place.”
I pressed my fingers against the worn armrest.
“You went in my bag.”
“Because he said we needed the key.”
“You took it after I asked for it back.”
“You were behaving as though we were strangers.”
Damian stepped toward her.
“Mum, let me.”
She moved his hand off her sleeve.
“No. She needs to understand that I wasn’t trying to cheat her. I’d have paid. Seventy-two thousand is a lot of money.”
“So is forty thousand,” I said.
“You’d still have a home with Damian.”
He nodded quickly.
“Of course she would.”
I looked at him.
“Unless I embarrassed your mother.”
He glanced toward Leslie.
“That was an argument between us.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t repeat every stupid thing somebody says when they’re upset.”
Annette sat down again. This time she sat on the arm of Conrad’s chair, beside me.
I stood.
She slid into the place I’d left.
The movement was so quick that I nearly laughed. Even now, even with a witness, she could find a way to take my seat.
“I’ve done a lot for you,” she said.
“What?”
She looked offended by the size of the question.
“I’ve welcomed you. I’ve included you in everything.”
I could have gone through four years of shopping trips. I could have supplied dates. My phone held enough errands to qualify as a delivery service with marital difficulties.
But my bags were on the bed. Conrad’s key rested in my pocket.
“I haven’t agreed to sell,” I said to Leslie. “At any price.”
Leslie nodded.
“Then there’s no purchase to arrange.”
Damian moved in front of me.
“Wait. You’re upset. We can talk about a different amount.”
“No.”
“An independent price, then. Whatever it’s actually worth.”
“It’s my home.”
“Our home is back there.”
He pointed toward the door.
“Your house,” I said. “The one you told me not to come back to.”
“I didn’t mean permanently.”
Annette stood again.
“Then stop this. Both of you. She can stay here tonight, calm down, and we can talk tomorrow.”
“I’m moving here,” I said.
Damian shook his head.
“You’re throwing away a marriage over an apartment?”
I took the unsigned estimate off the chair and handed it to Leslie.
“Please mark that I declined it. Not that we’re considering it.”
She wrote across her copy while Annette looked over her shoulder.
“There’s no need to make it sound so final,” Annette said.
I waited until Leslie finished.
Then I opened the door wider.
“Thank you for coming.”
Leslie left. I could hear her shoes in the corridor until the lift arrived.
Damian turned toward me before the doors closed.
“You’ve humiliated us.”
I took Annette’s basket by its handle and rolled it to the doorway.
She reached for it.
“Careful. You’ll catch the wheel.”
I left it standing in the corridor.
“Damian can carry it.”
Saturday’s boxes
At nine on Saturday morning, I went back for my work equipment and clothes.
I’d finished the proof from Conrad’s apartment the night before using the files on my laptop. The bed had served as my desk. I sent the pages after midnight, then slept with the green tag on the shelf beside his glasses.
The movers I’d booked cost $186.40.
I read the total twice before paying the deposit. I could have saved it by asking Damian to help. I was done making the cheaper choice that cost me another conversation with him.
Annette was in his kitchen when I arrived.
My work chair had been pushed under the counter. Her shopping bags stood beside it.
Damian opened the door and stayed in front of me.
“Can we talk before strangers come in?”
“They’re here for the desk.”
“You don’t need to take everything today.”
“I need to work.”
He moved aside.
I unplugged the monitor. He followed the cable with his eyes, then reached to help.
“I’ve got it,” I said.
Annette stood near the counter.
“Your husband couldn’t sleep.”
“Neither could I.”
“That’s what happens when people go to bed angry.”
I wrapped the monitor in the blanket I’d brought. There was a screw missing from its stand. I’d been meaning to replace it for months, every time somebody leaned across it to ask for something.
Damian put the screw from the cable clip into my palm.
“This is yours, too.”
I took it.
That nearly made me cry, the little piece of help arriving after I’d hired two people to do the rest.
The desk went out first. Then the chair.
Annette looked at the space they left.
“You’ll be back and want all this brought upstairs again.”
“No.”
Damian sat at the counter.
“What about the bills?”
“November’s money is already in your account. That payment was $860.00. I canceled the one for December.”
He lifted his head.
“I’ve budgeted for that.”
“So have I.”
There was no sale to Annette. No $40,000 reduction to explain away as keeping something among family. Conrad’s apartment stayed in my name, and my next month’s earnings would stay in my account until I decided where they went.
Annette pushed her shopping bags toward her son.
“These still need to go up to mine.”
He looked at Annette’s bags, then at me.
I bent to pick up my canvas shoulder bag.
He took the groceries.
The green tag
By Saturday afternoon, my desk stood beside Conrad’s window.
The movers asked where I wanted the chair. I almost said anywhere was fine.
“Here,” I said.
I moved it an inch to the left.
From that seat, I could reach the window without standing. Nobody had to squeeze past my monitor to get to the kettle. I plugged everything in and opened the proof I’d finished the night before.
My name sat on the credits page.
I left it on the screen while I put my clothes away.
Damian called twice. I answered the second time because he said he was bringing the bag of cables I’d left beside the counter.
He came just before five.
I met him downstairs rather than let him into the apartment.
He held out the bag. I checked inside for the monitor cable, then put it over my shoulder.
“Mum knows she went too far,” he said.
“What did she say?”
He looked at the intercom behind me.
“She’s upset about how everything happened.”
I put my hand on the door.
“Katelyn. I know I handled it badly.”
I waited.
“We could start again. Keep the apartment. Nobody’s asking you to sell it now.”
“I know.”
“Then come home.”
I held the green tag while I fitted the key into the building door.
He stepped closer.
“At least give me a key. I’m still your husband.”
I opened the door.
“You have your mother’s.”
I went inside with my bag and shut the door behind me.
If you’ve ever had to ask for time that was already yours, this one’s for you.
Stories about family taking your time and generosity for granted continue in the $417.60 bill my husband sent me and the birthday menu my son slid over my name. And when family expectations reach your front door, there’s the spare room my father put a price on.
