Chapter 4: Aunt Odessa

Laurence laughed through his nose.

"I'm not calling her that."

"You'll call her that on Sunday," Felix said. "Your mother sets the table by the old man's rule. You know where your aunt sits."

Evangeline lowered her phone.

For the first time since I'd met her, she didn't have anything to say.

Laurence looked at the brass ring on my finger. Then he walked out, and she followed him, her heels clicking down the hall.

Bex picked my pencil up off the floor and handed it to me.

"Well," she said. "That happened."

I moved onto the twelfth floor of Bancroft's that afternoon.

Two suitcases, my mother's sewing machine, my toolbox and the dead basil from my fire escape.

"It's dead," Felix said, holding the pot in the elevator.

"It's resting."

"It's brown."

"It's resting brown."

The old man's apartment took up the whole top floor.

It had dark wood, tall windows, bookshelves to the ceiling and a grandfather clock that ran four minutes slow.

Felix showed me my room at the end of the hall.

It had a brand-new brass deadbolt on the inside of the door. The screws were still shiny.

"Term three," he said.

"When did you put that in?"

"Wednesday. I did it myself."

"You know how to install a deadbolt?"

He looked offended.

His room was at the other end of the hall. Between us were the kitchen, the library, and about forty feet of very old carpet.

That night I made eggs, because his refrigerator held mustard, seltzer and one lemon.

"Do you eat?" I asked.

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