Chapter 8: Thirty Days

Hannah's brother arrived on Saturday at ten, in a fleece vest, with a folder under his arm.

Lena had told me to come down at a quarter to.

"Sit at the table," she said. "Look like a tenant."

"I am a tenant."

"Then it won't be hard."

I sat in the chair by the window in my grey skirt and tights.

I had a cup of coffee and a sketchbook I wasn't drawing in.

Lena sat across from the empty chair, with her back straight and her hands folded.

He came in without knocking and sat down without being asked.

He looked about thirty-six, with Hannah's dark hair and none of her smile.

"Lena."

"Say what you came to say," Lena said.

I blinked.

She had a way of making a person's whole plan collapse before they finished the first sentence.

He cleared his throat and glanced at me.

"Is she staying?"

"She lives upstairs."

"This is about the family."

"She's a tenant. Anything you say about the building, she can hear."

He shrugged and opened the folder.

"A developer made an offer," he said.

"One point nine million, cash, for the whole lot.

It's twice what the building is worth, Lena."

"No."

"You haven't read it."

"I don't need to."

I took a sip of coffee.

Under the table, something touched my knee.

It was Lena's hand.

She had reached across the corner of the table without moving her shoulders at all.

Her palm rested on my knee, warm through my tights.

She did not look at me.

"It's been two years," her brother said. "Hannah wouldn't want you living in her shadow like this."

Lena's fingers slid up my thigh, an inch.

I held my cup very still.

"Someone called the housing office about you last month," he went on.

"They said the landlord knocks at night.

I told them it was nothing, but they will ask again."

"The sheet is Hannah's."

"I know it is. I'm saying it's strange."

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