They had six thousand dollars in their own account. That was everything else they had.

And in June, their son told them the two of them were moving to Atlanta for four years, to live with me, and that it was because he was going to London and did not want me lonely.

“You knew,” I said. “When you came to my apartment in June, with the jams and the eggs. You knew you had nowhere to go back to.”

Shirley’s chin went up, which is a thing I had seen her do a hundred times across a dinner table and had always read as arrogance.

“Yes.”

“And you never said.”