I had no idea I had just moved into the place I would someday mean when I said the word home.

Chapter 5 — The First Thaw

The thaw, when it came, came through the flu, because it is very hard to keep your careful distance from someone who is holding your hair back over a toilet at three in the morning.

I got sick in November, the flattening kind, and I was too proud and too broke to miss work until my body made the decision for me, and I went down hard.

I remember very little of the worst two days except that Enid was there — appearing with broth I hadn’t asked for, with cold cloths, with a thermometer she read in the hall light and frowned at, with ginger ale and dry toast set inside my door on a tray.