By the end of the week, I had begun to understand how quickly fear could settle into a person’s body.
It lived in my stomach. It tightened my chest whenever my phone rang. It followed me into every conversation.
Then I found a handwritten advertisement taped inside the window of a small grocery store.
“GARAGE APARTMENT FOR RENT. PALMER STREET. $800. ASK FOR ALVAREZ.”
I stared at the paper for so long that the cashier finally asked if I needed help.
“Is this still available?” I asked.
She glanced at the notice.
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“Do you know him?”
“Everybody around here knows Mr. Alvarez.”
The way she said it made me nervous, but I wrote down the address anyway.
The apartment was a converted garage behind an old blue house on Palmer Street.
It had one bedroom and a kitchen the size of a closet.
A window over the sink looked out at somebody else’s tomato plants.
The paint on the walls was faded, and the floor tilted slightly near the bathroom.
The refrigerator made a low buzzing sound.
There was no dishwasher, no laundry room, and no space for a dining table.
To me, it looked like safety.
Trixie ran from one end of the bedroom to the other.
“Can I put stars on the ceiling?”
“We’ll see.”
“That means no.”
“It means we’ll see.”
She gave me a serious look, then opened the closet.
“It’s small.”
“So are your clothes.”
That made her laugh.
The landlord, Mr. Alvarez, met me in the driveway.
He was somewhere in his 70s, wore the same gray work shirt every single day, and had a face that did not give away a single thing he was thinking.
His hair was white and cut close to his head.
