there.

“For tonight,” Evelyn said.

“And maybe longer.”

Food arrived half an hour later.

Soup, sandwiches, fruit, fries.

Lia ate like she had forgotten that meals could arrive hot and on time.

Halfway through her grilled cheese, sleep caught up with her.

She drifted off on top of the blanket with one sock still on.

Evelyn pulled the blanket over her and stood for a moment looking down at her face.

Then she sat across from me and asked, very quietly, “When was the last time your mother spoke to you?”

“Two days ago,” I said.

“Tell me exactly what she said.”

I did.

I repeated every word as closely as I could remember it.

How I told my mother I was out of options.

How she had sighed and said I needed to stop expecting other people to rescue me.

How my father had sent me three shelter numbers and written, “Try these.” How neither of them had offered their guest room, their couch, or apparently the house that had been sitting in trust with my name attached to it.

Evelyn closed her eyes for a second, then opened them again.

“Sleep,” she said.

“Tomorrow will be ugly.”

I did not sleep much.

Every time I shut my eyes, I saw my mother’s face, not the sympathetic version she used in front of church friends or neighbors, but the private one: thin-mouthed, irritated, permanently disappointed.

By morning my stomach hurt from the effort of trying not to imagine what the file would contain.

Walter Greene’s office occupied the second floor of an old brick building downtown.

He was in his sixties, careful and dry in the way of people who had spent decades managing disasters in expensive suits.

He greeted Evelyn by first name, nodded to me, and set a thick file on the conference table.

The first pages were the trust documents.

Hawthorne Street was real: a modest two-bedroom house Evelyn had bought after my grandfather died and placed into a family trust.

The language was simple enough even I could follow it.

The property was to be maintained for my benefit.

If I ever needed housing, trustees were required to make it available to me promptly.

Required.

Not encouraged.

Not suggested.

Required.

My parents, Diane and Mark, had signed the acceptance pages as trustees.

My mouth went dry.

Walter turned several more pages.

“This,” he said, “is where it becomes difficult.”

He slid a single sheet across the table.

My name was typed neatly across the top.

At the bottom, there was a signature that looked like mine at a glance and wrong in every way once I actually saw it.

Above it was a statement declaring that I had been informed of the property’s availability and had voluntarily declined occupancy, while authorizing trustees to lease the home to third parties.

I stared at it until the room blurred.

“I never signed this,” I said.

“I know,” Walter replied.

“The notary stamp is from a county office two towns over on a day when your employment records place you at work forty miles away.”

Evelyn did not say anything.

She simply held out her hand, and Walter gave her the next set of pages.

Rental statements.

Deposit slips.

Transfer records.

For three years, the Hawthorne Street house