He folded towels without being asked and lined his shoes up precisely by the door and never, not once, left anything of his in a shared space.

He never took more food than he seemed to think he was permitted, hovering over second helpings until I learned to simply put more on his plate myself.

It took me a little while to understand what I was watching, and when I did it hurt.

He was auditioning.

Every neat bed and washed plate and carefully folded towel was a small argument in an ongoing case he was making — the case that he could be easy to keep, that he would be no trouble, that there was no reason to send this one back.

He had been returned ten times, and somewhere in all that returning he had concluded that the way to stay was to take up as little room as possible, to be so convenient that no one would ever have a reason to be rid of him.