And then she said, “There is also an amount up front.”

And she turned a single page of a document toward me and there was a number on it.

Eighty-five thousand dollars.

I looked at that number for about four seconds and then I understood what it was, and understanding it was the coldest moment of the entire morning.

It was not a round number chosen to impress me.

It was the eviction arrears, plus the two judgments, plus the credit card balances, plus about nine thousand dollars of something else, added up.

Somebody had sat with my credit report at four in the morning and totaled it.