Chương 3
Behind me, Vanessa said quietly, “She can use Caleb’s room tonight.”
My mother turned.
“What?”
“Caleb can sleep with me.”
“No,” I said.
Vanessa flinched.
“I’m trying to help.”
“You could have tried yesterday.”
Her mouth hardened.
“Fine.”
I hated how good that made me feel.
The pettiness of it stayed with me all the way to the car.
My coworker Lena answered on the fourth ring.
I had never been to her apartment.
We were friendly in the way people become friendly after working six years at neighboring desks without ever deliberately deciding to become friends.
She knew Emma was sick.
She knew almost nothing about my family.
“Hey,” she answered.
“You out?”
“Yes.”
“How’s Emma?”
“Discharged.”
“Oh, thank God.”
I looked at my parents’ house through the windshield.
My mother was still standing on the porch.
“I need a favor.”
Lena went quiet.
“What kind?”
“The embarrassing kind.”
“Those are usually the expensive ones.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
“Can we stay with you tonight?”
The silence lasted two seconds.
“Yeah.”
“Lena, I mean both of us.”
“I assumed you weren’t abandoning your kid in my living room.”
“I don’t know how long.”
“That part we can discuss after you get here.”
I closed my eyes.
“Are you sure?”
“No, but come anyway.”
Emma was asleep before we reached the end of my parents’ street.
That night she slept in Lena’s spare room beneath a yellow quilt that smelled faintly of dryer sheets.
I sat at Lena’s kitchen table after midnight with the North Harbor envelope in front of me.
Lena made tea, forgot about it, reheated it, then forgot about it again.
“You planning to open that?” she asked.
“Eventually.”
“Strong strategy.”
I slid my finger beneath the flap.
The letter inside was not an approval.
It was a conditional notice.
Two missing documents.
Updated employment verification.
Proof that a disputed collection account had been resolved.
Deadline: ten business days.
My stomach tightened.
Lena read my face.
“Bad?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Good?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Banking sounds fun.”
I laughed again, quieter this time.
Then I read every line twice.
At 1:17 in the morning, while Emma slept down the hall and my entire life sat in three cardboard boxes beside Lena’s coat rack, I opened my laptop.
The first document would be easy.
The second might destroy the application.
The collection account belonged to a credit card I had not used in four years.
According to the letter, the balance was $4,860.
According to my divorce decree, that debt was supposed to have been paid by my ex-husband.
According to the credit report in front of me, it had not been.
I stared at the number until the screen dimmed.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message from my mother appeared.
You still owe us $600 for this month.
I turned the phone facedown.
Across the table, Lena finally remembered her tea.
She took one sip and grimaced.
“Cold again.”
I looked toward the hallway where Emma was sleeping.
For the first time that day, nobody was telling me where my daughter was allowed to sleep tomorrow.
That would have to be enough until morning.
By seven the next morning, I had already called the collection agency twice and learned nothing useful.
The first representative told me the account had been sold.
The second told me it had been purchased back.
Neither could explain why both statements appeared in the same system.
Lena stood at the stove making scrambled eggs while I wrote names and reference numbers on the back of an old grocery receipt.
“You know they make notebooks,” she said.
“I own notebooks.”
“Good.”
“They’re in my mother’s garage.”
Lena nodded.
“Receipt it is.”
Emma shuffled into the kitchen wearing one of Lena’s oversized T-shirts over her pajama pants.
Her hair stuck up on one side.
She looked pale, but less translucent than she had the night before.
“Morning,” Lena said.
Emma climbed into a chair.
“Do you have toast?”
“I have bread and a machine that aggressively dries it.”
Emma considered this.
“That counts.”
I set the phone down.
“Medicine first.”
Her face collapsed.
“Mom.”
“Medicine.”
“It tastes like melted pennies.”
“Still medicine.”
Lena slid a plate toward her.
“I have strawberry jam.”
Emma looked at me suspiciously.
“Can I have a lot?”
“You can have a reasonable amount.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means less than you’re imagining.”
She took the antibiotic with the expression of a person swallowing poison for political reasons.
Then she drank half a glass of water and accepted the toast.
For ten quiet minutes, the world became small enough to manage.
Eggs.
Toast crumbs.
A radiator ticking near the window.
A delivery truck blocking half the street.
Lena complaining that her upstairs neighbor had apparently begun learning the trumpet at forty-three.
Then my phone rang.
The number was unfamiliar.
I answered immediately.
“Claire Morgan?”
“Yes.”
“This is Marisol Vega from North Harbor.”
I stood and moved toward the living room.
Lena lowered the stove flame without looking at me.
Marisol’s voice was warm but careful, the voice of someone accustomed to people treating every syllable as a verdict.
“I saw the updated collection item this morning.”
“So did I.”
“I figured.”
“Is the application dead?”
“No.”
I pressed two fingers between my eyebrows.
“But?”
“But underwriting will need documentation showing either that you are not legally responsible for that balance or that the matter has been resolved.”
“I have a divorce decree.”
“That helps.”
“It says he assumed the debt.”
“That helps a lot.”
“Then why is it on my report?”
“Because a divorce decree can assign responsibility between spouses without changing the original creditor agreement.”
I closed my eyes.
“So if both our names were on it, they can still come after me.”
“Possibly.”
“Even if a judge said he had to pay it.”
“For credit reporting purposes, yes, depending on how the account was structured.”
The old anger arrived with surprising freshness.
Not toward Marisol.
May you like
Toward Eric.
Toward myself.
