Diane counted the change for the utility bill. It came to three hundred twenty dollars and change, which she'd been dropping into an old coffee can since last week.
Outside her window in Cincinnati, a light rain fell. The elevator in the building was broken again — somebody had unscrewed the bulb on the third floor the day before, and now the landing smelled like damp concrete and someone else's cigarette smoke. From the apartment across the hall came the smell of scorched oil: her neighbor Ruth fried potato pancakes every Tuesday like clockwork.
"Mom, why'd you get the regular bread?" Marissa pulled a loaf out of the grocery bag and made a face, holding it between two fingers. "Josh doesn't eat that. He needs the yeast-free kind, with bran. Regular bread gives him heartburn, and he can't deal with that right now. He's still working on his grant application."
Josh, twenty-three, was stretched out on the living room couch, aiming a game controller at the TV. He'd been "working on his grant application" for three months now, between tournaments in some online shooter. Marissa was five months pregnant. The bump already showed under Josh's baggy T-shirt with a skull on it and the words "Cleveland Gaming League." Diane hung her coat on the hook by the door, kicked off her wet shoes, and set them on a folded newspaper. Josh's size-thirteen sneakers lay right in the middle of the hallway, laces splayed out like two dead snakes. She stepped over them and went to the kitchen.
"Did you stop at the pharmacy?" Marissa trailed after her, not letting up. "The midwife said iron is non-negotiable. You want your granddaughter to end up anemic? And vitamin D too. I wrote you the list — it's right there, on the fridge."
Diane turned on the faucet, rinsed two potatoes, peeled them over the pot. The knife was dull; she'd been meaning to sharpen it for a week now.
"Your list," she said, "comes out to about eighty dollars. Iron's ten. Vitamin D's another twelve. The special bread's four fifty. And I've got sixteen dollars left until payday for everything."
"But this is for her health!" Marissa's voice climbed an octave. "Josh says you shouldn't cut corners on a baby before it's even born. This is your granddaughter, Mom! Your own flesh and blood!"
Diane dropped the potatoes into the pot, filled it with water, turned on the burner. In the living room, gunfire erupted again on the TV. Josh yelled something into his headset mic, cursing. Marissa didn't even turn around.
"If Josh is so worried about the baby," Diane said, wiping her hands on a towel, "he can go apply for the stocker job at the Kroger down the street. They've had a sign up for weeks. Full-time, benefits."
"Stocking shelves?!" Marissa yanked open the fridge door, grabbed a carton of orange juice, left the door hanging open. "Are you kidding me right now? Josh has a college degree. He studied computer science. He's not going to wreck his back for minimum wage — that's degrading. You can't do that to a man, it'll send him into a depression."
Diane said nothing. She walked to the hallway, picked up Josh's sneakers, and lined them up under the coat hooks, toes facing the door. She straightened up, blew on her cold fingers. On the stove, the pot lid rattled — the water was starting to boil.
"Here's the thing," she said when Marissa followed her back in. "Rules are changing as of today."
"What rules?" Marissa stood in the doorway, clutching the orange juice to her chest.
"I buy groceries for myself. You and Josh eat on your own dime. His grant money, or your disability checks, whatever you've got. I'm canceling the internet at the end of the month — can't stretch the budget for it anymore. Josh covers his own share, or he goes back to his mother's."
"You can't do that!" Marissa scoffed. "This is my home too!"
"This is your grandmother's apartment, and she put it in my name," Diane said, turning back to the stove, stirring the soup with a ladle. "I pay the mortgage. And the electric. And the water. And that orange juice you're drinking right now — I paid for that too."
Josh wandered out of the living room. He scratched the back of his head, glanced at Diane like she was a piece of furniture that had suddenly started talking.
"What's for dinner?" he asked. "I asked for grilled salmon — you saw the video I sent yesterday. Costco had it on sale."
Diane didn't turn around. She stirred the soup once more. Shut off the burner.
"Dinner's over," she said. "I'm having soup. You and Marissa can get whatever you want on your own."
Josh laughed, short and disbelieving. Marissa shot him a look, then turned it on her mother.
"Are you serious right now?" she asked, quieter.
"I went to the pharmacy this morning," Diane said, covering the pot and standing there, fingers laced together in front of her. "You know what I found out? I paid twenty-eight dollars just to pick up lab results you'd left under my ID. Somebody else's lab results, Marissa. Josh's. He had them done back in March, got a prescription, and never filled it. Quit after a week. Said the pills made him feel off."
Marissa went pale. Josh stopped smiling.
"How do you even know that?" he sputtered. "That's private!"
"The pharmacist and I went to nursing school together," Diane said. "She's been holding your order since last year. You never went back for it."
Josh opened his mouth, closed it. Then he grabbed Marissa's sleeve.
"Pack a bag. We're going to my place."
Marissa didn't move. She shifted the orange juice from one hand to the other.
"And you?" she asked her mother, looking off toward the windowsill, where the paint had dried in streaks.
"Me," Diane said, opening the cabinet over the stove and pulling out the salt, "I'm staying. I live here."
Josh walked past her, grabbed a half-eaten apple off the counter, took a bite. He stood there a moment. Nobody said anything. Then he went to the hallway, took his time lacing up his sneakers, and slammed the door on his way out. Marissa watched her mother's back for another half a minute, then went to her room.
Diane was left alone. The soup cooled in the bowl she'd served herself, but she couldn't eat — there was a lump in her throat. She pulled the pharmacy receipt out of her pocket, smoothed it flat on the table, covered it with her palm. Then she wrote on the back: "Josh's labs. March. Never filled." She tucked it into the tea tin where she kept important papers.
It was eight thirty. Through the wall, Ruth's radio was playing, some thin-voiced woman singing about autumn. The potato pancakes had long since been eaten; now the smell of coffee drifted through.
Four days later, Josh moved out.
Diane's neighbor from the building next door called her that morning: "Your son-in-law's carrying boxes out in trash bags — three of them." Diane walked to the window. Josh stood by the entrance, smoking, warming one foot against the other. A cab pulled up seven minutes later. He got in without looking back. He left the third bag by the dumpster. A denim jacket of Marissa's stuck out of the top.
Marissa didn't leave her room until noon. Then she came to the kitchen, sat across from her mother, and dropped her head into her hands.
"He said he'd come back once I 'got some sense knocked into me,'" she said into the table. "That you're turning me against him."
Diane didn't answer. She watched out the window as the maintenance man swept yellow leaves off the playground.
"I didn't want him to leave," Marissa added.
"And I didn't want him eating off my spoon," Diane said evenly. "But he did. And you watched him do it."
Marissa sniffled, wiped her nose on the sleeve of her skull T-shirt. Diane slid the soup bowl toward her.
"Eat. The baby needs something hot."
Two weeks passed. Josh didn't call. Not Marissa, anyway. But Diane noticed how her daughter checked her phone every morning, and how her lips trembled when the screen stayed blank.
Then Josh sent a text: "Venmo me for a cab. I'm coming for my stuff. Or tell the old lady to toss it and pay me what it's worth."
Diane read the message over her daughter's shoulder. She took the phone, opened the banking app. Seven hundred forty-two dollars in the checking account. She screenshotted it, pressed her thumb to the screen deliberately, so her daughter would see.
"There," she said, saving the screenshot to her photos. "That's everything I made this month at the clinic. Out of that I paid the mortgage, the electric, the gas, and your vitamins. Now think about how much Josh's new video game cost, the one he bought that Wednesday we ate plain rice for dinner."
Marissa grabbed the phone back, locked the screen. Her face looked like she'd walked into a doorframe.
"Stay out of it," she hissed.
"I'm not in it," Diane stood up. "I'm just done paying for him. For anything."
She went to the notary's office on Saturday.
There was a title company on Reading Road where Diane had worked as a receptionist back in the late eighties. A new attorney sat behind the desk now, but the file with her deed was still on record. Diane laid two IDs and the property deed on the counter and wrote out her request by hand.
"I want to transfer the apartment into my daughter's name," she explained. "But with a condition. Life estate — I keep the right to live there. And if she marries Joshua Anthony Miller, or adds his name to the lease, or hands the property over to him in any way — the transfer's void. The place reverts to me."
The attorney adjusted his glasses, read through the draft. Looked up.
"You're sure about this? It's a serious restriction."
"I'm sure," Diane said, and signed without reading it again.
She had the notarized copy checked one more time, confirmed the seal, rolled it up, and tucked it into her purse. Then she walked out, bought a coffee from the corner stand for three dollars, and stood at the bus stop with it until the number 4 bus pulled up.
"You transferred the apartment?" Marissa stood in the doorway when Diane got home. Her eyes were wide, rimmed pink underneath, like she'd been rubbing them with her fists.
"Yes," Diane said, taking off her shoes, lining them up under the hooks. "With conditions. You can read the paperwork once you've calmed down."
"I always knew you didn't trust me!" Marissa stormed into her room, slammed the door hard enough to knock a magnet off the fridge. Diane picked it up. A blue ocean scene with "Myrtle Beach" printed across it. Marissa had brought it back from a school trip years ago.
The apartment stayed quiet through the evening. Diane could only hear her daughter blowing her nose now and then. Then, around seven, Marissa came out.
"Can I eat dinner with you?"
"Sure," Diane said, heating up chili in the microwave, cutting slices of bread. Marissa sat across from her, turning her spoon over and over in the bowl.
"What if he comes back?" she asked, very quietly.
"Then you'll decide for yourself," Diane said, biting into her bread. "Without me. Without my money. And without this apartment."
Marissa nodded, almost to herself. Then she picked up her spoon and started eating.
On Friday, when Diane came home from a night shift, a cab was parked by the entrance. The driver leaned against the hood, smoking. Josh sat on the bench under the oak tree, wearing the same jacket he'd left in, minus one sneaker — the lace had snapped.
"I'm here for my stuff," he said, not bothering to stand.
"I set your stuff out the first day," Diane said. "It was waiting by the dumpster. You never picked it up."
Josh straightened up.
"Then pay me what it's worth. That's my property."
"And what property did you leave in my apartment over six months?" Diane stepped toward the entrance, resting her hand on the intercom panel. "Three trash bags of dirty laundry, a game controller, and half an apple. That's the full inventory."
"I'll sue you!" he shouted after her. "You owe me compensation!"
Diane punched in the code. The door buzzed open. She turned back just for a moment.
"Go ahead and sue. Sounds like you've got plenty of free time for it now."
Josh kept shouting something, but the door had already shut behind her. Diane climbed to the third floor. Someone had finally screwed in a new bulb on the landing — steady yellow light washed over the worn steps. A pizza flyer with a coupon hung from a doorknob. She picked it up, smoothed it out, and hung it on Ruth's door — she knew her neighbor collected those.
That evening Marissa came home from her new job: part-time cashier at the FedEx store. She set a bag on the table.
"First paycheck," she said, with a crooked smile. "I bought vitamins. For myself."
Diane looked inside the bag. There was the yeast-free bread, a stick of butter, and a small bottle of vitamin D. And a receipt. Four dollars for the bread. Fourteen for the vitamins. Her daughter hadn't bothered rounding anything.
"Nice," Diane said, pulling out the bread, setting it on the cutting board. "First time in six months this kitchen smells like your bread instead of somebody else's video game."
Marissa took off her coat, hung it on the empty hook. Then she looked at the spot where Josh's sneakers used to sit. Her own shoes were there now, scuffed, laces frayed.
"Mom," she said, "I think I'll go to the midwife appointment alone tomorrow. Just me. I don't need you there."
Diane nodded, pulled out the bread box, cut a slice. She opened the window. Evening was settling over the courtyard, damp but mild. Nobody sat under the oak tree anymore, just tire marks left in the wet asphalt.
Marissa came up behind her and, without a word, set her hand on her mother's shoulder. Then she pulled it back, gave an awkward little smile, and went to take a shower.
Diane stood by the window, looking out at the yard. In the next lot over, a dog barked — big, reddish-brown, the one Ruth called Buster. Tomorrow, Diane decided, she'd make pancakes. There was enough now to make them with. And someone to make them for.
