The inspector came anyway. Adelaide had not withdrawn anything, and she had never said she would. The basement was ordered sealed and Dorian spent most of my refund putting in an egress window he now cannot legally rent out to anyone without a permit he will not get.

I moved out in October. Corinne had the baby in December and she messaged me once, a long message, apologising for things she had watched happen at her own kitchen table and said nothing about. I answered kindly. We are not in touch.

I live in a small flat with a proper kitchen and a door that only my key opens. I cook a lot. I still give food away, to people who ask.

Adelaide is eighty-two. She made the lemon cake again in March and she made it the same size as always, on purpose, and she said so.

I spent eleven months believing that being agreeable was the price of having somewhere to live. My grandmother taught me in one evening that a person who takes from you quietly is counting on you never checking whether they are allowed to. Looking it up is not aggression. It is simply refusing to disappear.