Chapter 2 - THE EVICTION NOTICE
“Four thousand eight hundred dollars.”
Faith said it as though she were confessing to a crime.
I looked at her.
“That's all?”
Her face changed.
“To you, maybe.”
I deserved that.
She returned to cleaning the broken porcelain, carefully gathering the larger pieces before touching the smaller fragments.
“Why do you owe so much?” I asked.
“Because rent doesn't stop when people get sick.”
“Who was sick?”
“My mother.”
Her answer came too quickly, as if she had rehearsed it.
“Is she still alive?”
Faith shook her head.
The room grew quiet.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
She looked genuinely surprised.
That bothered me.
Was basic decency so unexpected from me?
Of course it was.
I had spent six months making certain nobody expected anything else.
“What happened to her?”
Faith placed the broken porcelain in a wastebasket.
“Cancer. She died last winter.”
I watched her.
“And the medical bills?”
“Most were covered. The rest weren't.”
She stood.
“I'm not asking you for money, Mr. Carter.”
“I didn't say you were.”
“Then please stop looking at me like I'm a problem you can solve with a check.”
She picked up the cleaning supplies.
At the door, she paused.
“And your leg needs to be examined.”
I frowned.
“The doctors have examined it.”
“Recently?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Then they need to know about the spasms.”
“They know I have pain.”
“Do they know it suddenly got worse?”
I didn't answer.
Faith nodded.
“I'll call your physician.”
“You'll do no such thing.”
She turned.
“Then call him yourself.”
I stared at her.
She stared back.
Finally, I reached for the phone.
Mrs. Gable appeared in the doorway just as I began dialing.
Her eyebrows rose.
Faith walked past her.
“His breakfast is on the floor,” she said. “And he's calling his doctor.”
Mrs. Gable looked at me.
Then at the shattered plate.
For the first time in months, she smiled.
I hated that smile.
Mostly because I knew exactly what it meant.
May you like
Faith Willis had survived her second morning.
And somehow, I was the one beginning to change.
