He put the money in his drawer. Wrote her a receipt. Slid it across the desk without comment.
"You're paid up through next month," he said.
"Thank you, Mr. Petrov."
She left before he could say anything else.
She got home at four in the afternoon.
The apartment was exactly as she'd left it....minus the eviction notice, which she'd taken down from the door before going inside. She stood in the middle of the small space and looked at it. The crack in the ceiling. The leaky tap dripping its slow rhythm in the kitchen. The mattress on the floor because she'd sold the bed frame two months ago for grocery money.
It wasn't much.
But it was hers. And now it was staying hers.
She sat down on the edge of the mattress and let herself be still for the first time in forty-eight hours.
