the hall.”
He said it like he was explaining a reasonable upgrade.
He said it like the bedroom where my wife and I had slept for more than twenty years was a spare resource to be reassigned while I was unconscious.
I looked at him.
Then I looked at Cassie.
She lifted her chin and said, “Gerald, you need to be practical.”
That was the word she always used when she wanted something that belonged to me.
Practical.
It had started with smaller things.
A chair.
A shelf.
A cabinet.
A garage wall.
A corner of the living room.
People do not take over a house all at once if they are clever.
They take it inch by inch, and they call every inch a favor.
My name is Gerald Whitaker.
I am sixty-four years old.
I worked thirty-eight years as a project engineer for a mid-sized construction firm, and
