Part 5
Nancy called Leah that evening and listened through the explanation of the motel room without offering a better arrangement. There was a refrigerator, a microwave, a bathroom with a fan that sounded like loose change in a dryer. Ben’s crib fit beside the second bed if Leah turned the desk sideways.
“How’s Otis?” Leah asked.
“Eating. He’s taken over Paul’s good rug.”
“This place won’t take dogs. I’m looking for something else.”
Nancy almost said he was fine where he was. She looked at the dog lying under the dining table, one ear caught backward, and understood that fine did not answer what Leah was asking.
“I’ll bring him whenever you find a place.”
The next morning, Leah texted a rental address and asked whether Nancy could meet her there with Otis. The landlord wanted to see the dog before deciding. It was the first request Leah had made that did not involve fetching an object from upstairs, and Nancy read it twice before replying.
She drove her delivery pickup, the one with the tall fiberglass cap. In the passenger seat, Otis braced himself against turns and watched the road with grave attention. Nancy had spent years telling Leah the dog would never learn to settle in a vehicle. He settled now with his chin on a folded towel.
The rental was one half of a small brick duplex on the far side of Bellwether. Its little front garden had been covered with gravel, and the steps were shallow enough for Nancy to imagine carrying Ben up them without worrying about her knee. She checked the street for traffic, then made herself stop inspecting before Leah arrived.
Her daughter came with Ben against her chest in a carrier. Otis’s whole body bent toward her. She crouched as far as the carrier allowed and rubbed the loose skin beneath his collar, keeping Ben safely above the dog’s excited nose.
“There you are,” she said into his fur.
Nancy looked away while Leah stayed crouched. She had pictured herself as the person bringing comfort, and here was a reunion that did not need her to arrange it.
The landlord, Mrs. Givens, was a brisk woman with keys on a coil around her wrist. She asked about Otis’s age, habits, and veterinary care, then watched him walk through the empty living room. He sniffed one baseboard and lay on the bare floor while they talked.
“He’s old enough to know better,” Mrs. Givens said.
“Sometimes,” Leah answered. “He still steals paper towels.”
Nancy smiled, then caught herself preparing to explain that he only did it when they had food on them. Leah had given a perfectly adequate answer.
The bedroom was small. There was space for a bed and Ben’s crib, and a closet whose door Nancy would have sanded along the bottom. She noticed newer smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and pointed them out before she could stop herself.
Leah glanced up. “I saw.”
Leah took a small tape measure from her bag and checked the space between the bedroom door and the closet. Nancy recognized the yellow case; she had given it to her daughter when Leah first moved out. One side was marked with a spot of nail polish so it would not disappear into the laundry’s tool drawer.
“I wrote down the crib measurements,” Leah said, finding the page on her phone. She moved the tape, checked again, and made a small mark on her own sketch. Nancy held Ben for a moment while Leah measured the bathroom doorway, handing him back as soon as she returned.
At the kitchen sink, Leah turned the faucet and watched the water run. She checked the window latch, asked where the landlord could be reached after hours, and put the answers beside her measurements. Nancy had been ready to inspect the apartment for her. She put her hands in her coat pockets and let her daughter finish.
Mrs. Givens described the application, the deposit, and the first month’s rent. She would review applications Monday; another person was scheduled to see the apartment the following afternoon. Leah asked two questions, wrote down the answers, and said she would contact her after reviewing the numbers.
Outside, Nancy waited beside the pickup while Leah loosened the carrier strap. Ben had caught a fistful of her shirt and would not let it go. She opened his fingers patiently, one at a time.
“It’s a little tight,” Nancy said.
“It’s enough.”
“There’s hardly room for a kitchen table.”
“Mom.”
Nancy closed her mouth. A delivery truck went past with a stack of ladders rattling on its roof, and she watched it until Leah spoke again.
“Can you give me back the money?”
Nancy kept her hand on the pickup door. She knew precisely which money, though for a second she wanted to ask.
In June, when the big washer failed, Leah had transferred $2,600 from her housing savings. They had called it a short loan. Nancy had promised to repay it by September, when the seasonal linen accounts paid their balances. Then the truck needed tires, and a commercial customer was late, and the money remained in the machine while Leah remained upstairs.
“I can start paying it back,” Nancy said.
“How much?”
“I need to talk to Paul.”
“Paul didn’t borrow it.”
That was true. Nancy had kept the loan out of the business books because she meant to settle it herself, a temporary measure that had become harder to explain with every month. Leah had asked twice since September. Nancy had answered with other things she was providing: the apartment, groceries, the hours she watched Ben.
“The repairs are going to cost—”
Leah shut her car door, not hard, just enough to make Nancy stop. Ben turned toward the sound and wrinkled his face.
“I can’t use the same money twice,” Leah said. “It can’t be in your washer and in my deposit.”
Nancy looked at the duplex. Behind its front window was a rectangle of afternoon light where the crib might fit if the bedroom felt too small. She had been criticizing the space while knowing her daughter could not afford to choose it.
“Let me work it out today.”
“Please give me a number and a time. I can’t tell this woman you’re working it out.”
Nancy nodded. Leah thanked her for bringing Otis and kissed the dog’s forehead before getting into the car. Nancy stayed beside the pickup as they drove away, holding the leash with both hands.
Then she took out her phone and called Paul.
“I need to tell you what paid for the washer.”
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