17. Liana
— ? —
Liana
The landlord’s voice on the phone was apologetic but they didn’t sound very sorry about it.
“I understand this is disappointing, Mrs. Costa, but we’ve discovered some structural concerns with the unit that need to be addressed before we can rent it out.” He cleared his throat on the other end of the line. “We’ll be happy to refund your deposit in full, of course.”
“You told me yesterday that the unit was ready for move-in.”
“Yes, well, circumstances change.” Another throat clearing. “I’m sure you’ll find something else that suits your needs. Newport has plenty of rental options.”
“This is the third rental that’s fallen through in two weeks.” I heard the edge creeping into my voice and didn’t bother to soften it. “Is there something going on that I should know about?”
The pause on the other end lasted a beat too long.
“I’m not sure what you’re implying, Mrs. Costa.” His voice had gone stiff now, defensive. “These things happen. The rental market is unpredictable.”
“The rental market has been very predictable for everyone except me, apparently.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” He didn’t sound sorry at all. “We’ll process your refund within five to seven business days. Thank you for your understanding.”
The line went dead before I could respond.
I set the phone down on the counter and stared at it, my jaw tight, my hands clenched at my sides.
Gina looked up from where she was sitting on the couch with Bianca, helping her color in a picture of a mermaid.
“Another one fell through?” She kept her voice light for Bianca’s sake, but I could see the concern in her eyes.
“Apparently the building is about to collapse, even though it looked perfectly fine when I toured it yesterday.”
“Mama, when are we going to have our own house?” Bianca looked up from her coloring, her blue eyes wide and hopeful. “I want a room with a window that looks at trees. And a backyard where I can have a swing.”
“Soon, baby.” I crossed the room and bent down to kiss the top of her head. “Mama’s working on it.”
***
After Bianca was asleep on the pull-out couch, I sat in Gina’s tiny kitchen and scrolled through my phone.
The list of available rentals in Newport was getting shorter by the day, and every place I called either didn’t return my messages or suddenly remembered they had already promised the unit to someone else.
Spencer’s name sat in my contacts, and I stared at it for a long moment before pressing call.
“Liana. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.” There was a pause, and I heard the clink of ice in a glass. “How are you holding up? I heard about you and Dominic. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” I leaned back in the chair and rubbed my eyes. “I’m calling because I need a favor, Spencer. I know you have rental properties all over Newport, and I’m running out of options. Every place I try to rent falls through at the last minute, and I can’t figure out why.”
The silence on the other end lasted just a fraction too long.
“I wish I could help you.” His voice was careful now, measured. “But everything I have is booked up right now. I’ve got waiting lists for most of my properties.”
“Everything?” I sat up straighter. “You have dozens of units, Spencer. There’s nothing available at all?”
“It’s a busy season.” He cleared his throat. “Lots of people looking to relocate to Newport. I can put you on a waiting list if you’d like, but I can’t promise anything will open up anytime soon.”
“Spencer.” I kept my voice level. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He said it too quickly, too smoothly. “I’m just telling you what’s available, which is nothing right now. I’m sorry, Liana. I really am.”
I thanked him and hung up.
***
I was standing in line at the grocery store with Bianca tugging on my sleeve, begging for the cereal with the cartoon characters on the box, when my phone buzzed with an unknown number.
I almost didn’t answer, but something made me swipe accept and press it to my ear.
“Mrs. Costa?” The voice on the other end was pleasant and professional. “My name is Bertha Walsh, I’m calling from Shoreline Properties. We have a rental available that I think might interest you.”
“A rental.” I shifted the grocery basket to my other arm and tried to keep Bianca from grabbing the cereal off the shelf. “Where?”
“Maple Street. Three bedrooms, recently updated kitchen, nice backyard with a swing set the previous tenants left behind.” She paused. “It’s in a good school district. Walking distance from Newport Elementary.”
“What’s the catch?” I heard the suspicion in my own voice but couldn’t help it. “Every rental I’ve tried to get in this town has fallen through. Why is this one different?”
“The property just came on the market. The previous tenants moved out last month and we’ve finished the cleaning and repairs. It’s ready for immediate move-in.”
“What’s the rent?”
She named a figure that was lower than anything else I’d seen. Not suspiciously low, but reasonable. Fair.
“Can I see it?”
“Of course. I can meet you there this afternoon if you’re available.”
The house was exactly what she had described.
Three bedrooms, one of them small enough to be perfect for Bianca.
An updated kitchen with granite counters and stainless steel appliances.
A backyard with grass that needed mowing and a wooden swing set with two swings and a slide.
The neighborhood was quiet, tree-lined, the kind of place where kids rode bikes on the sidewalk and neighbors waved at each other over hedges.
It was perfect. Too perfect.
“Who owns this property?” I stood in the living room with my arms crossed, watching Bertha flip through papers on her clipboard.
“Shoreline Properties manages it on behalf of the owner.” She didn’t look up from her papers. “A holding company, I believe. Atlantic something.”
“You don’t know the actual name?”
“I handle the day-to-day management, Mrs. Costa.” She smiled at me. “The ownership structure isn’t really my area. What I can tell you is that the lease terms are standard, the rent is due on the first of each month, and maintenance requests are handled within forty-eight hours.”
“Why is the rent so reasonable?”
“The owners like to keep good tenants.” She held out a pen. “Shall I walk you through the lease?”
I should have said no. I should have walked out of that too-perfect house and kept looking, kept digging, kept trying to figure out why every other door in Newport had slammed in my face while this one swung wide open.
But Bianca was tugging on my sleeve again, her eyes bright with excitement.
“Mama, there’s a swing set.” She pointed toward the backyard. “And the room upstairs has a window that looks at a tree, just like I wanted. Can we live here? Please?”
I looked at my daughter’s hopeful face. I thought about the pull-out couch at Gina’s apartment and the weeks of rejection and the growing certainty that something was wrong, even if I couldn’t prove it.
I took the pen and signed the lease.
Two days later Bianca climbed onto the kitchen stool, put my phone to her ear, and told her father she had a new room and he had to come see it. I heard the low murmur of his voice on the other end say yes before she’d finished asking.
He showed up the next afternoon with a stuffed elephant under his arm and her crown hooked over his wrist. Bianca grabbed his free hand and hauled him toward the stairs, and he let her, but his eyes never made it to the second floor.
They moved over the counters, the cabinets, the window above the sink.
His hand trailed along the edge of the granite as he passed.
“Nice place.” He pressed his thumb into a seam in the countertop, testing it. “Good neighborhood.”
“Thank you.” I put the island between us. “Her room’s the second door.”
He didn’t head for the stairs. He crossed to the back door instead and crouched, working the handle back and forth so the loose hinge announced itself with a soft rattle.
“These are loose.” He looked up at me. “Five minutes with a screwdriver. You have one?”
I stepped between him and the door. “The landlord can handle it.”
He held my eyes a moment, then rose without a word, the muscle in his jaw ticking once.
“In ten years I never saw you pick up a screwdriver.” I kept my voice flat while my pulse climbed. “So what’s this about.”
His gaze dropped from mine to the floor. The silence stretched until Bianca came thundering down the stairs, the elephant clamped under one arm.
“Papa, his name is Gerald.” She thrust it up at him. “He sleeps in my bed and fights the bad dreams.”
He went down to her level and turned the elephant over with the same focus he used to give a shipping manifest.
“Gerald.” He pressed one soft ear between two fingers. “He looks like he’d win.”
“He would.” She nodded hard. “Mama says I can get a nightlight too. The kind that puts stars on the ceiling. We don’t have it yet.”
He straightened and held out his hand. “Show me the room, then.”
He came down an hour later carrying her against his shoulder, heavy with sleep, a plastic bag swinging from two fingers of his other hand.
“She went out on the floor mid-story.” He kept his voice under the room. “Didn’t want to wake her.”
I followed him up. He laid her on the bed and drew the blanket to her chin, thumbed the hair off her forehead, tucked Gerald into the crook of her arm. Then he stood over her and looked, and looked, and something in his face put an ache under my ribs I didn’t want there.
He passed me in the hall. The bag was gone.
“What was in the bag?”
He stopped at the top of the stairs without turning all the way around. A faint blue glow leaked out under Bianca’s door, and when I looked, points of light were drifting across her ceiling in slow circles.
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know.” He looked back at me with those blue eyes that used to make me the center of every room. “I wanted to.”
He was back the next day. Bianca had left a jacket in his car, he said, holding it up as evidence, and then he was in the backyard on his knees in the grass while she climbed him, and I watched from the window with my arms crossed and didn’t call either of them in for forty minutes.
The day after that it was a book he thought she’d like. The day after that, nothing at all. He filled my doorway and asked if she was home.
“She’s at school.” I kept my body in the gap. “It’s two o’clock on a Wednesday. You know she’s at school.”
“Must’ve mixed up the days.” No part of him looked mixed up about anything. “Can I wait for her?”
“No.”
He nodded like he’d already known the answer and then simply stayed, not pushing, not leaving, taking up space on my porch as if it had always been allotted to him.
“Your kitchen faucet’s dripping.” He said it to the air between us. “Heard it yesterday. Get it seen to before it eats the seal.”
“How do you know my faucet drips.”
He lifted one shoulder. “It has a sound.”
I shut the door on him.
I called the management company that afternoon, mostly to prove I could run this house without him. A repair van pulled up two hours later. Ten minutes, no charge, done before I’d finished my coffee.
He’d left my porch at a quarter past two. The van came at half past four. I stood at the counter and turned that over, and set it down next to the other things that hadn’t been adding up.
Gina came by that night with wine and pizza and the face she wore when she’d decided I needed to talk.
“He comes every day now.” I walked the length of the living room while she folded onto the couch. “Every day, Gina. A whole year he couldn’t get home for one dinner. Missed bedtimes. Missed the start of her recital. And now I’ve moved out and suddenly he can’t stay off my porch.”
“Maybe he worked out what he was about to lose.” She drank.
“He worked it out a decade late.” I didn’t slow down. “He gets no credit for showing up with elephants and star lights once it’s already gone.”
“Is it working?”
“No.” It came out fast. “It’s infuriating. He’s infuriating.”
“Okay.” Her face went smooth and careful. “So it’s not working.”
I stopped and looked at her. “Every other rental in Newport fell through. This one opened up the same week. Rent’s nothing. Every time I report a problem it’s fixed by dinner. And he keeps turning up and naming the exact things that need fixing, and then they get fixed.”
Gina took a long, unhurried sip.
“Sounds like a run of good luck.” She said it to her glass, not to me, and her thumb worried the stem.
I was too tired to hear what her voice was doing.