Seven days later, her voice was different on the phone.
I was standing at my kitchen sink with the faucet running, not washing anything, just giving my hands something to do while I listened to her breathe through what sounded like a carefully arranged panic. The rent was overdue. The landlord had called. If I didn’t transfer by end of week, they’d be out.
I looked at my own unopened mail on the counter, the stack I’d been ignoring while I transferred their rent and bought their groceries and funded the wedding I was not special enough to attend, and I felt the cold thing behind my ribs harden into something more useful.
“Lena,” I said, and my voice was even in a way that surprised me, “didn’t I warn you I only help special people?”
The silence on her end lasted four seconds. I counted. Then the call ended.
