Chapter 9
After lunch I sat on the floor of Mia's room while she napped, her breathing soft and even, her hand curled around the edge of her blanket. I stared at the light coming through the curtains and tried to do math in my head.
If Bianca wrote a bad reference, how many cleaning jobs would I have to apply to in town? We had moved into the small staff room off the kitchen because Matteo had offered it after my old apartment lease ended and my mom's place in Victorville had flooded. It was free, but it wasn't ours. If he had to choose peace, we would be leaving with two suitcases and a pink backpack.
I had the local gas station's help wanted sign memorized from our last grocery run. I had the number for the diner on Highway 18 saved in my phone from before. But Mia's school was here. Her teacher knew her. The sheriffs knew this road.
I was pulling up apartment listings on my phone, cheapest first, when Matteo knocked lightly on the open door.
He didn't come in right away. He stayed in the hallway and whispered, "Hey. You have a minute?"
I slipped out and closed Mia's door most of the way. Matteo was holding a set of keys with a plain silver keychain.
"Bianca went to her sister's in Palm Springs for the night," he said. "I thought you should know so you can relax."
"Okay. Thank you."
He turned the keys over in his hand. "She talked to you this morning in the laundry room. The camera in there has no sound, but I saw her come in and close the door."
My face got warm. "She was just talking about references. About the future."
"She threatened your job," he said, not as a question.
I looked at the floor. "She said Matteo will need peace."
"Look, I need to show you something." He gestured down the side hall toward the garage. "Come on. Thirty seconds."
I followed him past the kitchen, past the glossy marble hallway where I had knelt, out the side door to the driveway. The garage was detached, three bays, with a staircase on the outside leading to a door painted light gray. It had its own small porch, its own mailbox, a window with curtains.
He unlocked the gray door and pushed it open. Inside was a one-bedroom apartment, bright, clean, with a little kitchen along one wall, a couch, a twin bed plus a loft bed for Mia tucked under the eave. The floors were wood, not marble. It smelled like fresh paint and laundry.
"I had it done for my dad's nurse two years ago," Matteo said. "It's been empty. It has its own entrance, its own bathroom, its own lock. It's not staff housing. It would be a lease. Fifty dollars a month, just to make it legal, and you keep working however many hours you want, or not at all for a while. Your choice."
I stood in the doorway, my hand on the frame, afraid to step on the rug.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you shouldn't have to worry that your daughter's bed depends on whether my fiancée is in a good mood," he said. He set the keys on the little kitchen counter. "Because when I watched that footage and then watched Bianca try to pour water last night, I realized Mia will never feel safe if your housing is tied to Bianca's approval. That's my fault for setting it up that way."
I walked in slowly. The apartment had a tiny dining table with two chairs, a bookshelf, a window over the sink that looked toward the estate but not directly at it. It was separate. Private. The kind of place where Mia could cry without someone hearing it as a complaint.
I touched the back of one of the chairs. My fingers left no mark. "I can't pay much right now."
"You don't have to decide today," he said. "But the keys are here. The offer stands even if everything with Bianca gets messy. You and Mia would have a door that only you lock. No one can tell you to kneel on any floor here again, and no reference can take your home away."
May you like
Outside, a car passed on the county road, distant. Inside, the refrigerator clicked on with a low hum.
I stared at the keys on the counter, bright in the daylight, and for the first time since the pitcher and the hallway, my breathing evened out. I didn't pick them up yet. I just stood there looking at the small kitchen where Mia could pour her own water, and knew the next time Bianca came back, I would have something solid to stand on.
