PART 1: THE APARTMENT THAT SAVED US

When my marriage ended, I was thirty-one years old with a four-year-old daughter, $1,100 in my bank account, and a car that only started if I turned the key twice.

That was everything I still owned.

My daughter, Trixie, was too young to understand why her father had left or why we were packing our lives into cardboard boxes.

“Are we going somewhere fun?” she asked, holding up a purple sweater.

“We’re going somewhere new,” I told her.

“Will Daddy come?”

“Not today, sweetheart.”

She accepted the answer and placed the sweater inside the box. I turned away before she could see me cry.

I worked part-time at a dental office, but my income barely covered groceries. Most apartments required deposits, credit checks, references and proof of income I could not provide. Some landlords stopped responding the moment I mentioned I had a child.

Then I found a handwritten notice taped inside a grocery-store window.

**GARAGE APARTMENT FOR RENT. PALMER STREET. $800. ASK FOR ALVAREZ.**

The apartment was behind an old blue house.

It had one bedroom, a tiny kitchen and a floor that tilted near the bathroom. The refrigerator buzzed constantly, and the window above the sink looked out over a row of tomato plants.

To me, it looked like safety.

Trixie ran into the bedroom.

“Can I put stars on the ceiling?”

“We’ll see.”

“That means no.”

“It means we’ll see.”

She opened the closet and frowned.

“It’s small.”

“So are your clothes.”

That made her laugh.

Mr. Alvarez met us in the driveway. He was in his seventies, wore a grey work shirt and had a face that revealed almost nothing.

He looked at me, then at Trixie, then at my unreliable car.

“Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Do you have a dog?”

“No.”

“Is the little girl yours?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“Eight hundred a month. First of the month. No lease. I don’t like paperwork.”

I nearly cried.

“Is there a deposit?”

“No.”

“Application fee?”

“No.”

“Do you need proof of income?”

He stared at me.

“Can you pay eight hundred?”

“Yes.”

“Then move in Saturday.”

That was all.

We arrived with six boxes, two suitcases and a mattress my sister had given us. Trixie slept in the bedroom while I slept on a narrow sofa in the living room.

The first night, rain hit the roof so loudly that she came out carrying her blanket.

“I can’t sleep.”

I lifted the blanket.

“Come here.”

She curled against me.

“Do you like our new house?”

I looked around the tiny room.

“I think I will.”

“I like the tomatoes.”

“They’re not ours.”

“We can still look at them.”

That became our life.

I worked mornings at the dental office and evening shifts at a bakery three nights a week. I used coupons, patched my shoes and learned which bills could be delayed.

But the rent was always paid first.

On the first day of each month, I wrote Mr. Alvarez a cheque and slid it beneath his back door.

He never gave me a receipt.

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