Chapter 3

And then, before anything happened with Jude Bowers, everything else hit the fan.

They waited until my shift was almost over, about eleven hours in, and then invited me to come for a meeting. It was a pattern, that was what they told me. I looked across the desk at where my manager at Detroit Saint Raphael, an HR rep, and the director of the emergency department sat.

“A pattern,” I repeated, and all three of them nodded. There was a pattern of problems with my interactions with other employees, with my communication, with my inability to absorb criticism and respond appropriately, with so many other things. No, I hadn’t done anything that seriously jeopardized anyone, but there was a pattern of Major Problems.

“You would lose an experienced nurse over these things?” I asked, and again, they all nodded solemnly. It was such a shame, they told me, but we’d already had several meetings about these Major Problems (again, not about compromising patient care or suspecting me of diverting drugs, but they were still Major).

Yes, I’d had meetings before, but I hadn’t known that I should have taken them seriously. After all, the problems they were pointing out were mostly personality issues. If someone didn’t like me, I considered that to be her fault, not mine. If you were soft? Deal with it. If I hurt your feelings by telling you what I thought? Suck it up, buttercup. There was nothing that they’d talked about before that indicated that I needed to change my entire character, because I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“I would bet that the real pattern is that all the incidents you’re talking about were written up by the same person. It’s Cleo, isn’t it?” I asked. “She’s the one who submitted all of those reports, she’s the one claiming to feel threatened and triggered. If I hear the word ‘boundary’ one more time—”

“It’s a pattern of Major Problems that reaches back over several years,” the HR woman said.

“Two years ago was when Cleo came to work at Detroit Saint Raphael,” I told her. “Is that when all the incident reports started coming in? Because I’ve been here for eight years, with no issues at all.”

“That’s not true,” the ED director said. “You and I have had numerous conversations about your interactions with patients and staff over a long period of time.”

I shook my head in frustration. “I’ve never violated HIPAA. I don’t call in constantly, like some of my coworkers. I don’t make medication errors, I’ve—”

But there were other Problems, they said, and enumerated them again. It looked like they’d been working up quite a file on me and yes, the things they were discussing had begun more than two years ago when Cleo had arrived. But there was nothing that bad. I hadn’t killed anyone! I hadn’t even taken a sick day in more than seven years!

“Anybody in the emergency department could be written up for all of those things, in every shift,” I said, and that was true. Besides the personality issues that they had with me, they were nitpicking about minor things that everyone else did too, calling attention to Major Problems that weren’t major or hardly even problems at all. “I’m a good nurse. I’ve done a good job here and it would be a mistake if you let me go.”

Yes, they were letting me go, but they were giving me the chance to resign instead of being fired. “Is this because of my employment at Midtown General?” I asked. “Is that really what’s going on? No one has ever cared before, not until Cleo started making it a big deal.”

“Nicola, that’s the issue right there,” my manager said. “You’re not able to accept that your errors are your own. You’re not able to take criticism and improve. You’re not able to change.”

“I can change.” I wasn’t the same person I’d been when I’d graduated from college, so how about that? But they looked at me in that solemn way that made me want to throw my chair at them. It became clear that there was nothing I could say or do, that I was out no matter how much I argued or how right I was. It wasn’t like me to give in even if there wasn’t any hope but I couldn’t get fired, not since I’d need another job to replace this one.

“Ok,” I said. “Ok. What do I have to do?”

My resignation was accepted. Then I had to walk down to the emergency department, the place where I’d worked for so long, to collect any belongings. I was accompanied by the HR woman and my manager. They didn’t have a security guard with us and they also let people know that I was leaving on my own accord—as if any of my coworkers was fooled. I made my face totally calm and emotionless and I met their eyes, too.

“You can say your goodbyes,” the nurse manager told me. I looked around at the people watching us with curiosity on their faces, at some who were smiling and some who were whispering, but none of whom looked sympathetic or confused. Maybe they’d known that this was coming before I did.

“I don’t need to say anything to them,” I answered. “No goodbyes for my former coworkers, but I did want to tell you that you’re next.”

“Is that a threat?” Her eyes moved to the security guard who hadn’t accompanied us, but was standing close by.

“I’ve watched you since you got here and I have pages of notes on you and your behavior. You’re a terrible boss,” I told her. “You don’t do anything right and I know it. Somehow, by luck or by sucking up to the right people, you’ve gotten yourself into your job but you’ll be out soon enough. When I go home now, I’m going to type up an email and send it to every one of your superiors. I’ll document all the mistakes you’ve made, with dates, times, and sometimes photographic evidence.”

“You can do whatever you want,” she said, but now she looked just like my brother Patrick when he was about to get in big trouble. He got pale around his mouth in exactly the same way as she was at this moment.

“And when you go, your friend Cleo will follow. She only lasted this long in the job because of you covering her errors and propping her up.” I took my phone out of my bag and opened to the timer. “You’re both toast,” I announced and hit start. “Let’s see how long it takes.” I didn’t look at anyone as I walked out of the Detroit Saint Raphael emergency department.

That had been my big moment, right? A swirl-my-cape-over-my-shoulder kind of a Hollywood exit, except…what next? I still had the money problems, and now I was down to only one job. There were other hospitals in the area, of course, and nurses weren’t having a problem getting hired right now. Except…

I was so tired. I left the parking lot for the last time, the last time ever, and then I felt a burning feeling in my eyes and had to pull over. I leaned on the steering wheel, resting my forehead against the worn cover and telling myself that things would be ok. It would be ok, I would get another job. It was just eerie to think that they’d been watching me for years and had been waiting to pounce and write me up, and that everyone had worked together to get me out.

It was smart thinking, I had to give them that. They didn’t like me and they’d taken care of the problem. Incident reports were serious things at DSR; they weren’t taken as ways for us to learn and improve, but used more like cudgels on employees. I’d written up people before, but I had only done it when I really thought that they were compromising patient safety. The things they’d said about me were problems, yes, and were things I probably shouldn’t have done. Saying “everybody did it” was not a good excuse, and I knew it. But everybody did do things like cutting corners and making little errors, moving fast and messing up on small stuff, because the emergency room was busy and we were overworked and stretched too thin. And I was so tired. I was so, so tired.

I drove home with that burning feeling in my eyes, going a lot slower than usual and even making a wrong turn, so that I got there just as the kids across the street were walking to the next block to wait for the school bus. They watched me without waving, because they’d tried that for about a year after moving in but had given up when they realized that I really didn’t care enough to raise my hand in return. It was getting to be spring but it was still in the forties right now, and I noticed that the girl didn’t have a coat on. She wore only a thin shirt and her brother had a sweatshirt, but also no jacket. He was older, probably about ten, so that was on him. The older siblings had to get the younger ones ready, but I also considered that she was big enough to take care of herself. What was she, seven? When I’d been that age, I’d been making breakfast for myself, Sophie, and Addie while my mom had dealt with my twin siblings, and later I’d had the twins as well while Mom handled Brenna, and then Grace. He couldn’t take care of one sister? Weak.

I walked into my house and shivered, because it didn’t feel that much warmer inside. The first thing to do, obviously, was to make a list of how I could cut back further. But when I got out my journal, I ended up writing about what had just happened, and then I put my head on the cushion and looked up at the ceiling with the yellowed paint and chipping plaster, things I’d wanted to fix since I moved in. I closed my eyes because I didn’t need to see it and the next thing I knew, there was a ringing sound.

My phone. I looked at it blearily, first thinking that I needed to get up and shower, eat something, and get ready to go back to Detroit Saint Raphael—before I remembered that I wouldn’t be going back to that hospital anymore. And it wasn’t an alarm I’d set anyway, but a text from Jude Bowers.

“Do you have time to talk about me renting the room?”

Suddenly I had a lot of time. “Yes.”

“Can I come over after work?”

“Yes,” I wrote again. And now, due to his impending visit, I had a determined number of hours to make a lot of improvements to this house. There were many things that I had to get done so that I wouldn’t be totally ashamed when my new tenant showed up. I gathered all the supplies, which filled the top of the kitchen table on the drop cloth I’d previously spread to protect its surface from the liquids and spray bottles and the different rags and brushes. There were specific tools for specific purposes, of course, and I sorted them all carefully before I started to clean for real. And by the time that Jude was supposed to arrive, the house was pretty good. Not as nice as I would have wanted it, but livable.

When the doorbell rang—or at least, when it made the noise that sounded like something electrical popping instead of a nice chime—the only thing that wasn’t clean in the house was me. I didn’t look in the mirror that hung by the front door because I wasn’t interested in seeing my appearance, since it had no bearing on this situation. I didn’t bother to straighten the scrubs I still wore or even to tuck back the unruly locks of hair that had escaped from the knot I always twisted it in. No, I didn’t care.

“Hello,” I said when I opened the door. It had warmed up since this morning, and the fresh air felt good. Jude looked good, too. His hair seemed to have grown a little more and he smiled when he saw me, which automatically made someone attractive. He had an especially nice smile because he didn’t just move his lips—it was hard to explain, but it seemed like his whole body got happy for a moment and his eyes lost their sad cast.

“Hi, Nicola,” he answered. “How are you doing?”

How was I doing? That was a good question. Physically, I felt so tired that my limbs kind of hurt, and they were definitely shaking. And emotionally? I’d just lost half of my job security and learned that my coworkers had been conspiring against me. I didn’t like them, I didn’t think they were my friends—but still, to hear that they were actively acting to bring me down?

“I’m fine,” I answered. “You?”

“Not bad,” he said, and I invited him in.

“I cleaned up,” I told him, and when his eyes went to my person, I quickly explained. “I cleaned up the house. You should take another look, now that it’s in better shape.”

“I don’t think I need to,” he answered, and that negative response immediately told me that he was not going to move in here. I became more convinced when he said, “You didn’t find anyone else to rent the room?”

“No.” I hadn’t been looking but I didn’t say that, and if he was stupid enough to pass up the opportunity himself? Well, he could put that down on the list of regrets he probably had. I had actually made one for him in my latest journal and I’d add “didn’t rent room” to it the moment that he left for good.

“Why did you want to come over?” I asked. What was the point of wasting my time with this?

“I wanted to say that I would like to live here, if you’re still open to that.” He paused for me to answer and I shrugged slightly, not understanding him. He wasn’t rejecting me? I meant, he wasn’t rejecting the room?

“I also wanted to explain why I didn’t jump right on your offer the first time,” he continued, and rubbed his head where his hair was definitely longer. “I don’t trust myself very much. That’s why.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Can we sit down?” he suggested.

Well, maybe we could, rather than standing in the small foyer with the kids across the street spying from their yard. “Sure.” I led the way back to the living room where I automatically fluffed the pillows on the couch before I sat. I should have washed these slipcovers today but there hadn’t been enough time, not when I’d had to take out everything from the drawers in the kitchen and sterilize the contents and the drawers themselves as best as I could.

Jude sat in the old armchair that had belonged to my grandparents. “When I didn’t immediately jump on your offer, it wasn’t a knock on you or your house. I realize that it may have seemed that way. The thing is, I don’t have any faith in my decision-making skills,” he explained. “For a while now, I’ve been taking the wrong fork. I mean that when there’s a choice to be made—”

“I understand. For the past few years, your life has been a disaster,” I filled in.

“Right, it has been.”

“Like how you became an alcoholic,” I stated. “How you let yourself slide into addiction. How you sold off all your woodworking equipment so that your business was forever destroyed. Before that, you probably obliterated many professional relationships by missing deadlines and providing poor-quality products. You haven’t mentioned much about your personal life but based on my experience with drunks, that got wrecked, too. Then you chose to party with a group of idiots who pushed you out of a moving car and you coded. Your heart literally stopped beating due to your choices.”

There was a brief pause and I watched him draw in a breath. “Yep, all of those things are true,” he agreed, and nodded. “Although, to be fair, I wasn’t partying with those people when I ended up in the ER. I didn’t know them at all and I think that they were doing me a favor by taking me to the hospital because they found me unconscious somewhere. I’ve tried to retrace my steps that night to figure out what happened, and that’s the best explanation I can come up with.”

“They did slow down when they opened the door and let you fly,” I acknowledged. “And they didn’t steal your wallet, although they took the money and credit cards out of it.”

“I didn’t have any of those things for them to steal from me. I have enough for a security deposit for you now, though, in cash.”

“Cash is good. What made you trust the decision to come here?”

“I have to start somewhere. Literally, I need somewhere to live, but I also have to start making more choices to move myself forward. You seem like a very safe bet.”

I didn’t answer that and I put on the same expression I’d had when I’d walked out of Detroit Saint Raphael today: blank. “When do you want to move in?” I asked.

“I have my stuff in the car. If you said no, I was going to a motel.”

And just like that, I had a housemate again. I watched him walk to his trunk and fetch a single bag and the box he’d claimed held memorabilia, and then I showed him up the stairs again and into the room that I’d recently scrubbed from top to bottom. It turned out that I’d been a little hard on my former tenant Liv, because I had only encountered a minor amount of dust under the bed in there. While he unpacked, I went over some of the rules again, like where he could put his food in the fridge (that had been an issue with Liv, who didn’t seem to understand much about food safely). I discussed using the outdoor space, which I personally never did due to a lack of time. But as a landlord, I needed to set up clear expectations for that and for everything else. I also talked about parking, because that had been a real issue with some of my tenants in the past.

“I use the garage. Even if it’s empty and I’m working, that’s for my car,” I started to explain, but Jude spoke up then. He’d been mostly quiet, only nodding as I talked about a cleaning schedule and how I classified rags for a particular task, about electrical usage, temperature setting on the thermostat, mail collection, recycling, et cetera. But he had something to say about parking.

“Is your door broken?”

“The garage door? Yes. It won’t affect you—”

“I’ll take a look at it,” he mentioned. “Sometimes it’s an easy fix on those things.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I used to have a garage with a door that broke a lot, and I never wanted to put in a new one so I kept it going myself.”

I was interested in this line of discussion. “You had a house?”

“Do you have tools?”

“Yes,” I said, and he told me to get them and meet him outside.

I did that and he was already assessing the problem when I arrived. The problem, as far as I could see, was that the door was about as old as the house and holy Mary, it was heavy. I’d learned that the hard way in January when the opening system had failed and the door had been closed with my car trapped inside. And it had been snowing, and I had needed to get to work. Somehow I’d managed to pry it partway with an old pipe, then shimmy underneath and raise it higher on my back, and then shove it up enough that I could brace it open with that pipe to get my car in and out. Fortunately for me, I had little hatchback, not a big SUV, and I’d squeezed out with the metal plate attached to the bottom of the door just scraping the top of my roof.

“This is older than mine was,” he commented, and took my pail of tools to study the small assortment. “Hm. We’ll see what I can do with these. Can you move your car out?”

I did, and when I returned, I had questions for him. “Where did you live? Where was your house with the broken stuff?”

He easily lifted the door the rest of the way, so that it rolled fully back on its tracks and stood all the way open. “Bagley,” he said briefly.

That was another Detroit neighborhood pretty close to my own, still on the West Side. “Did you own it?”

“Yes, and in answer to what you’re going to ask next, yes, I also lost my house.”

Too bad. He’d blown up every one of his important assets and I would add another item to his list of regrets. It was already so long; I really didn’t blame him for trying to make more careful decisions with all that as his track record.

“How did you come to live here?” he asked me, and it wasn’t much of a story.

“I saved a lot, for years.” I said. “I saved every cent I could and I never spent anything on myself. When other girls were buying prom dresses, I put the money towards my education and my future house.”

“What about your parents? Couldn’t they have bought you a dress? Although I would imagine that as a family of nine, money must have been tight.”

“My dad has a good job and I know my mom’s parents helped them out with things. My parents don’t help us like that, though. They expected us to work and live on our own—well, that was true of me, Sophie, and Addie, the three oldest,” I corrected. “After they had had my brother, they loosened up, especially my mom. She’s crazy about Patrick so she started giving him a lot of stuff, and that bled down onto everyone else in the younger set of siblings.” It had been especially great for Patrick’s twin, my sister Juliet. She’d been able to join a travel team for sports and she went to private college, which they’d helped to pay for. Brenna got to go for a semester abroad in France, and Grace still lived at home (rent-free). Patrick himself got anything he wanted. “My sister Sophie is bitter about all that but there’s nothing to do about it now,” I mentioned.

“Bad families all suck in their own, special ways. I think somebody famous said that.”

“Why does your family suck?” I asked, but he only shrugged and asked about my mortgage and interest rate.

“I bought this place at a pretty good price and I refinanced at a better rate than what I started with,” I said. I’d done a good job, so why shouldn’t I have said it?

“Lucky,” he commented, and I was filled with a sense of dread. What if I lost this house? I had lost my job, hadn’t I? I was on the brink of losing everything.

“Nicola?”

From the way he was staring at me, I thought that maybe it hadn’t been the first time that he’d tried to get my attention. “Yes?”

“I said, you need two new springs. This door is original to the house and the opener was added on years later. It’s old and the wood is so heavy that the springs gave up the ghost.”

“Would those be expensive to buy and install?”

“Yes,” he said. “Probably better to get a new door.”

I was underwhelmed by his repair skills. “We’ll see,” I answered, which had been what I’d always said to my sisters and brother when they begged for something. It meant “no,” except I didn’t feel like arguing. I also wasn’t going to argue about home repairs with my tenant, of course, and especially since he wouldn’t ever use the garage anyway. I took back my pail of tools and on the way to the house, I showed him specifically where to park in the driveway. He seemed more focused on the broken concrete path the led from the street to my doorway.

“I bet this used to be brick and it would be nice to see that again. Cal has a lot of old bricks piled up behind the shop. How many feet from the steps to the curb is it?”

“I have no idea.”

He estimated, and then determined that I would want a wider path, and then quickly calculated the square footage and how many bricks I’d hypothetically need. It didn’t matter since I would not be breaking up my path or installing pavers, but he seemed interested in the project. Maybe he was thinking that I’d let him barter away his rent with beautification projects, but I wouldn’t. Liv had paid less than the woman who’d come before her, because she did cleaning which was necessary to live. I was already giving Jude a great deal and anyway, a functioning garage door and a pretty brick path weren’t at all necessary even if they would have been nice.

By that point, I was going inside but I heard him speak again. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Jude. What are your names?”

He was talking to the kids across the street. I paused and watched him walk to the sidewalk. The two of them introduced themselves back but I couldn’t catch what they’d said from my distance. I’d never wondered before what their names were.

“I just moved in with Nicola,” Jude was telling them, and he pointed toward me. I automatically moved my hand up to wave, but the kids only stared in my direction. “It’s getting a little late,” he said next. “Are you out here playing?”

The big brother said something about dinner and waiting for their mom to come home from her job.

“Maybe you could play in the back,” Jude answered, and I knew he was thinking about their safety. I heard them telling him more about their yard and then they wandered off and he walked over to me. “Nice kids,” he remarked.

I guessed that they weren’t bad. “I’m going to bed,” I said, and walked inside.

“Really?” He followed me and carefully locked the door. “You don’t have work tonight?”

Right. I had sold him on the place by saying that I wouldn’t be around much, and now I would be—at least until I had another job. “I got fired today from DSR. They let me resign, but it was me getting fired.”

“Whoa, really? Shit, I’m sorry about that,” he said. “Are you upset? You must be.”

I thought about it. “I’m not upset about the job itself,” I said. “I’ll go to another hospital and one is as good as another.”

“You didn’t like the people you worked with?”

I remembered that he’d been so impressed by them. “They’re generally competent. There are only a few that I would refuse to let touch me if I was brought in there. Personally, I didn’t have much to do with them. It’s not like how you seem to be friends with the other guys at the woodshop.”

“I guess that I am.”

I nodded. “I’m not like that. But I’m worried about the money. I’m very worried,” I admitted, and my voice shook slightly and I had to sit down on the couch.

“I thought you said that you got this house for a good price, and you refinanced the mortgage. Your monthly payment couldn’t be that bad and you’re not…pardon me for saying so, but it doesn’t look like you’re sinking a lot into the place.”

“It’s none of your business.” No, it was not, but I’d invited his intrusiveness by making the remark about my financial concerns. “I’m going to bed.” And I got up to do that, despite how it was early enough that the kids across the street were still outside playing.

Instead of going right to my room, though, I first took a quick shower. I knew that the groaning sound of the old pipes would be audible throughout the house so I carefully followed my own guidance to set a good example: no tap could run for more than four minutes, and that included the shower. Liv and my other tenants had all complained about that rule; I was sure that when I was out of the house, they hadn’t abided by it at all. When the allotted time was up, I combed out my hair in front of the mirror and dabbed on more of the face lotion I’d dug up before, on the day that I’d gone to the woodshop for the first time. Then I put on the pajamas I’d brought into the bathroom with me. I looked at myself in the mirror that hadn’t had time to fog from the shower (and really, the water didn’t run hot enough for that to happen, anyway). If possible, I seemed to be even paler than before, paler and more forlorn.

I carefully wiped down the tub and sink, again to lead by example, and then I listened closely to what was happening in the house but didn’t pick up on any sound except the usual creaks that I always heard when the wind blew. There was no noise that indicated that my tenant was doing anything in his bedroom or downstairs, but I opened the door carefully anyway. I was going to be very, very careful tonight.

It had occurred to me during my four minute shower that I didn’t know this guy at all. Of course, I’d read all the information I could find on social media and with search engines, but there wasn’t much and also, reading bits and pieces about someone’s life on a screen didn’t mean that I knew him. In fact, I’d invited a perfect stranger to live in my house, and why in the heck had I done that? It wasn’t like me at all, not at all! My previous tenants (besides Liv, whom I’d known since she was born) had all been required to provide letters of reference and undergo background checks.

And this guy? First, I’d watched him die, then I’d had two pancakes with him, and finally I’d offered him a room in my house. Was I out of my mind? I scurried across the hallway and into my bedroom, where I locked the door, a flimsy contraption that wouldn’t have held back much more than a mouse. Jude Bowers was much bigger than a mouse. Maybe he was still too slim, but there was obviously so much strength in his limbs. I remembered how easily he’d dealt with the garage door which seemed to have weighed five or six tons when I’d tried to lift it.

I asked myself again what I had been thinking but I couldn’t come up with a good answer, no matter how much I considered it and how much I wrote in my journal to clarify my ideas. Instead, I gave up and quietly opened the bedroom door again to listen. The house was totally quiet, but maybe he was a very sneaky person?

If that were true, then it was another strike against him. I would have to add it to my list of his unsavory characteristics. I had written them about all my boyfriends—Jude was a housemate and not a boyfriend, but it didn’t mean that I couldn’t record the same kind of tally. I had already started it and the only items I had so far were “hair too short,” “skinny,” and “doesn’t keep track of running distances/times.” Those things weren’t very serious, but small problems could add up quickly. That was what had happened to me in the emergency department at Detroit Saint Raphael, right? They’d been keeping their own tally of small errors that weren’t important, and they had added up to me being unfairly fired. But if that hadn’t been fair to me, then maybe my lists…I decided that I wasn’t interested in the comparison.

Where was Jude, anyway? His bedroom door was wide open and nothing appeared different in there from when he’d set the box of his memorabilia in the back of the closet and then he’d unpacked his six shirts, short pile of t-shirts, three pairs of pants, and small bag of toiletries. I could see that one of the drawers in the bureau was still slightly ajar from when he’d haphazardly placed his socks and underwear in there. He didn’t have enough to last a week, which I’d noted because it meant he would have to do more laundry than the one load every five days which my house rules permitted. Anyway, it didn’t seem like he’d been back up here, and I didn’t hear him downstairs—

I walked into his room, which I shouldn’t have entered, to look through the window and out onto the street. His car was gone from the driveway and I hadn’t heard him leave, so he must have snuck out while I was in the shower. No, not “snuck” because he could (of course!) come and go as he chose. I certainly wouldn’t be monitoring him, just as he shouldn’t have been monitoring me. And obviously, he wouldn’t do any monitoring since he hadn’t even said goodbye when he left. Which he didn’t have to, because he was a tenant, not a friend. Nothing more.

I went quietly back to my room, locked the door, and wedged the wooden ladderback chair that I used as a plant stand under the handle. It didn’t display anything green and living anymore, since I wasn’t ever around enough to tend to things. I’d had dreams of filling my house with all the pretty flowers, herbs, and houseplants with unusual leaves that I’d seen in other women’s cottages. They did make things feel more homey.

This place didn’t feel that homey, and it probably wouldn’t have even if I added a plant or two. Or ten. But it was mine and I didn’t want to lose it. I lay in bed and although I was tired enough that I still shook, I couldn’t fall asleep. I scrolled through job opportunities on my phone and I listened for any noise in my street, any car turning into my driveway. I finally let my eyes close a few hours later when I heard the front door shut, quiet footsteps on the stairs, and then someone enter the bedroom across the hall. Jude Bowers was home, and I wondered what he’d been doing. I wondered if I should get up to check and see if he’d been drinking—I could spot it in under three seconds.

But I stayed in bed with my eyes closed and after a while, I felt myself start to drift off. Stranger or not, it felt like a comfort to know that he was there.