“Ees it to hurting so much?” She looked into my eyes with hers that were so dark, the lines in her face delicate-looking, like she hadn’t had them long.

“I don’t want to ruin your towel.”

She smiled but I don’t think she understood what I said. Her son came to the room with a box of cotton balls and a roll of Ace bandage. He said something to her—Arabic, I decided—then he said to me with no accent at all, “I use it for skateboarding. Don’t worry, I washed it.”

“Sorry, but I have to know what the story is before I continue the job.” The carpenter stood in the doorway and watched while the woman swabbed the bottom of my foot with a clear liquid that smelled like ginger. My face got hot, and I held my finger up to him to wait a second, though I didn’t know what I was going to say next. The woman pressed a cotton ball to each puncture in my foot and she started to wrap it tight with the Ace bandage. Every turn or so she would glance up at my face to see how I was. Her son left the bathroom and I heard a TV go on in what used to be the room Nicky practiced his bass in. I looked up at the carpenter and said quietly: “I’ll talk to her husband.”

“Fine. Sorry about your foot.”

I watched him walk down my hallway with his tool belt and shorts and no shirt. I felt abandoned.

The woman pulled the last bit of tape up around my ankle, kept it there with her thumb, then held it down with a safety pin. She smiled at me and we both looked at each other a second, which made me pull my leg from her lap and stand up, but I couldn’t put weight on my foot without a burning ache shooting up my shin. She helped me out of the bathroom and I half-leaned on her all the way to the living room, where she guided me to the sofa behind the silver coffee table. I was about to say no but she moved a pillow, slid the bowl of sweets off to the side of the table, then rested the folded towel there for my foot; all I could do was sink into the softness of the couch.

“I carry you tea and sugar. You must for rest.”

I watched her walk into my kitchen and reach into a cabinet for a clear glass cup. On the wall across from me were paintings of mountains on a waterfront, of bearded men in robes on horses. On the lamp table beside me was a family portrait of the woman smiling next to a bald man in a military uniform. Sitting in front of them was the same boy who’d answered the door, only he was younger, his face more smooth and round, and beside him was a beautiful young woman with long black hair that went past her shoulders and hung over her white blouse. She had her mother’s eyes and the gentle smile too.

“That is of course our family pictures.” The woman rested a black breakfast tray on my lap. The tea steamed up into my face as I sipped it, and she went into the kitchen and came back with a small bowl of red grapes.

“Thank you,” I said. She smiled at the other end of the couch and put a cube of sugar in her mouth before she sipped her tea, placing the cup in a saucer on her lap. She was looking at my bare legs, the high hem of my cotton shorts, her face taking them in like my mother would. My cheeks flushed. I could hear the muffled noise of the carpenters cutting through wood above us, then hammering something, then cutting some more. The woman was sucking softly on the sugar in her mouth. The grapes were cold and sweet, but I wished I’d never driven up here last night and I put the tray on the table, sat up, and stood on my good foot.

“No, you must for rest your foots. Your friend must to the hospital bring you.”

I made my way around the table and hopped to the door. Draped over the edge of the silver table was the folded white towel, my blood drying all over it. “Thanks for your help, but he’s not my friend. I don’t even know his name.”

CONNIE WALSH WAS in a meeting when I limped up the stairs above the Café Amaro and told Gary I wanted to see her and I’m not leaving till I do. He looked down at my bandaged foot and asked what happened, but I sat without answering because I felt like killing somebody right then, anybody, but not him, especially when he dragged a chair over for me to rest my foot up on while I waited.

Connie Walsh’s morning clients were two women a little older than me and better dressed. They walked out of the conference room laughing, but when they saw me sitting there with my foot up on a chair that almost blocked their way, their laughter dropped down to smiles as they squeezed by and disappeared down the stairs.

My lawyer stood in the doorway. “What happened to you?”

“They’re tearing my fucking house apart.”

“What?”

I hopped by her into the meeting room that smelled like clove cigarettes. All the tall windows were open and the room was full of sunlight. I leaned against the table and crossed my arms over my chest to keep my hands from shaking. “They’re remodeling it. What are you going to do about that?”

“Have a seat, Kathy.”

“I don’t want to sit down. I want to fucking kill somebody. How come they don’t even know they’re squatting in somebody else’s home? I’m tired of this shit.” I lit a cigarette.

Connie sat down and called out to Gary to please bring us two cups of coffee. She looked up at me with a patient look on her face. “The courier just brought over the paperwork from the county this morning. I was planning to review it and call you this afternoon.”

“I don’t want you to call me, I want you to call those Arabs who are cutting up my house.” My voice broke, but I wasn’t going to let whatever was under it break through. Gary came in and left the coffee. My foot felt swollen so I pulled out a chair, sat down, and rested my leg on another.

“What happened?”

“My yard is a construction site.”

“You were there, Kathy?”

“That’s right.” I emptied a whole packet of Sweet’n Low into my coffee, stirring it while Connie launched into a soft-voiced lecture on why it’s a good idea to stay off the property so she can do her work unencumbered.

“It’s very important we’re both clear on this,” she said. “Agreed?”

I looked at her, at the premature gray in her hair, at the serious look in her face, and I was still so mad at how far all this was actually going my throat felt closed up, but I said yes, then drank from my coffee. Connie excused herself to go get the paperwork. Outside, on the flat roof of the Roxie Theater across the street, two pigeons were perched on a brick chimney stack in the sunlight. They stood together looking out over the street below, their beaks jerking front and back, right and left, as they took in the scene.

My foot hurt. I smoked another cigarette and thought how at least today was my off day with the cleaning and if I was lucky I might be able to put enough weight down tomorrow to work. But on the drive over my right sole ached so much I had to sit almost kitty-cornered and use my left foot on the gas and brake pedals, making me sit as low in the seat as an old lady. I started to stand to go find my lawyer, but then she walked back into the room smiling, carrying a manila folder in front of her.

“I was right. They sent your signed statement with everything else. Here.”

I took it from her. It was the original statement both Nicky and I signed in front of the notary. I looked at his signature, each letter of his name written so neatly while mine was a hurried scribble. I used to think he did that so people wouldn’t have to decipher it, so he wouldn’t make things hard for anyone, so he wouldn’t leave behind a mess. I used to think that.

Connie Walsh said a few things and I looked up and nodded at her like I’d heard.

“And it’s obvious they decided to put it to rest with that statement, so I’ll fax them a letter today and we’ll follow it up with a phone call before offices close. If they don’t offer to rescind the sale immediately, we’ll sue the county for a bundle. Are you still at the motel?”