The smallest name on the lease

I didn't shake the rug. Some stupid part of me thinks if I keep the steps small today the day will stay small. The driver didn't move his head. Only his eyes. Younger than the July one. I don't know why that detail is the one I keep — maybe because a younger man does this work and that's what the work costs. Or because he looked up like I was already logged.

I opened the envelope at eleven. I hadn't opened it since July because not opening it was its own kind of proof I was handling it. The proof is gone now. Inside: a screenshot of a text I read once and never saved myself, a Polaroid of me walking into a building the camera was not supposed to be on, and one typed line. Hollis is the smallest name on the lease. There are three larger.

Three. I have been doing math all day about whose names are over mine and I cannot get past the fact that I'm on it at all. I thought the smallest name was the protected name. Apparently the smallest name is the one somebody uses to flip the rest.

I sat at the kitchen table for nine minutes. I know it was nine because my phone lit up twice and I didn't look. Just sat with the Polaroid face-down because the building number in the door's reflection was legible and I didn't want to read it twice in one day.

Mr. Greene brought rice and peas at four. He stood in the doorframe and held the tupperware out at arm's length and did not step in. I want to write down the way that felt. The whole week I have been watching men decide how far across my line they get to go. The only man today who asked was the one who didn't have to.