“I didn’t know what you drink here.”
“The same thing I drank there.”
“I know. That sounded stupid.”
She sat on my sofa.
I handed her the printed email.
She looked at it.
“Oh.”
“You wrote this.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She considered the question.
“When my grandmother moved in with my parents, she sold her house and gave most of the money to my father.”
I had never heard this story.
“What happened?”
“Nothing terrible.”
Her expression turned thoughtful.
“That was the problem. Everyone was nice. Everyone loved each other. But after a few years, my grandmother wanted her own apartment again.”
“And?”
“She couldn’t afford one.”
I understood.
“My father had used the money to pay off their mortgage.”
“Yes.”
“Did she stay?”
“Until she died.”
Rebecca stared at the paper.
“She never complained. But every time my parents argued, she went to her bedroom and shut the door because she said it wasn’t her house.”
Her voice softened.
“I was fourteen when she moved in. I remember thinking that being grateful looked an awful lot like being quiet.”
I looked around my apartment.
The blue armchair.
The turquoise scarf.
My ridiculous pottery-class schedule attached to the wall.
