“You don’t want to wear yourself out for a landlord who won’t even paint your front porch.”

I kept my hands folded on the edge of the counter.

“We manage.”

“I know you do,” Judy said, smiling softly at me.

“You two are the only ones who don’t need someone holding your hand with the checkbook.”

I didn’t tell her that forty-eight hours earlier, I had stood at a bank window downtown and handed over a cashier’s check for forty thousand dollars made out to the county treasurer.

Out in the detached garage, the air was cold and smelled of old gasoline, damp concrete, and rubber tires.