The man in the photograph would not have understood why such small changes mattered.
The man sitting at the kitchen table understood perfectly.
PART FIVE: THE LIFE THAT FOLLOWS
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Application
Richard Davis called in February to say the ground-floor apartment would become available the following month.
His tone suggested he was announcing an inconvenience, not an opportunity. George was at work, finishing a stock report, when the call came. He wrote down the date, the unit number, and every condition Richard mentioned.
“There’s a deposit,” the landlord said. “Standard amount for a new rental.”
“What happens to the deposit on my current place?”
“We inspect after you move.”
“If the unit is in good condition, could the deposit be transferred, minus any documented charges?”
Richard paused. George could almost hear him rearranging the conversation in his head. He was accustomed to tenants asking for favors. This tenant was asking for procedure.
“Maybe,” he said. “I need to check the books.”
“Please do. I’d like the terms in writing before I make a decision.”
Richard muttered something and said he would call back.
George hung up and studied the numbers in his budget notebook. The ground-floor apartment would be smaller. Sadie’s room would face the courtyard instead of the parking lot. The kitchen had less storage. The bathroom was easier to reach and had a door wide enough to make moving comfortably less difficult. Most important, the entrance had no steps.
The apartment might be a practical improvement rather than a dream fulfilled. George was learning to value such things.
That evening he and Sadie walked downstairs to see it. Mrs. Benson, the departing tenant, showed them around with the cheerful impatience of somebody already planning where she would put her furniture in a new home. She pointed out a loose cabinet hinge, a window that stuck when the weather was humid, and the one spot near the back door where rain sometimes seeped beneath the threshold.
George wrote all three down. He appreciated the honesty.
Sadie walked into the second bedroom. It was small, with cream walls and a shallow closet. She stood at the window and looked out toward the courtyard, where children had built two lopsided snowmen beside a tree.
“I could see Lily if she came over,” she said.
“You could.”
“And Mrs. Moreno’s porch.”
“Yep.”
“Would Mom know where we went?”
The question caught him off guard. She was looking around the room as if Elena’s absence had become a physical object that might be left behind with the old curtains.
George crouched carefully beside her. “We take the things that remind us of her. The notebook, the pictures, the recipes. More important, we remember her wherever we go.”
“Even downstairs?”
“Even downstairs.”
Sadie took one last look around and announced that the room would be improved by a yellow curtain, an idea she already considered financially reasonable because Mrs. Moreno had fabric left from a previous sewing project.
When they went back upstairs, George took a long breath at the landing. His knee had been better recently, but climbing still took effort. He looked down at the ground-floor doorway and imagined arriving home with groceries without having to plan where he would rest halfway up the stairs.
It was a modest luxury. It felt enormous.
Richard called two days later with written terms allowing the deposit to be applied toward the new unit, subject to inspection and agreed deductions. George read the agreement, asked one question about the inspection date, and signed.
He did not feel as if he had defeated Richard. He felt as if he had taken a step toward making daily life sustainable. That was better.
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Phone at Recess
Carter, the boy who had shown Sadie the fight video on the first day of school, was still talking about it in March.
His interest had changed shape. At first he wanted to know whether George was dangerous. Then he wanted to know whether George would teach him to fight. Now he had started telling other children that Sadie’s father could beat up anyone in Oak Haven and that Sadie must be lucky because nobody would ever dare bother her.
Sadie disliked the claim because it made her feel less safe, not more. It meant other children looked at her differently. It meant she could not have a simple disagreement over a playground game without somebody mentioning her father.
One afternoon Carter accused Lily of cheating at four-square. Lily denied it. Carter pointed at Sadie and said, “You better not tell your dad to come get me.”
The other children laughed. Sadie felt her face warm.
“My dad doesn’t come to school to fight kids,” she said.
“How do you know? He fights grown-ups.”
“Because he’s my dad. That’s how.”
Carter opened his mouth to reply. Sadie stepped away instead, pulling Lily with her. They found Mrs. Patel near the garden beds and told her what had happened. It did not feel like a victory at first. Carter watched them go and called them tattletales.
