“I would want to switch apartments. I would want to be on the ground floor.”
“It’s your house,” he said.
“And one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I would ask you to park your car on the street,” she said. “I would want the driveway clear for our use.”
He seemed to chew on what she’d said. His mouth rose at the corners in a forlorn smile at the concessions his situation—she realized that she didn’t care to know the first thing about it, not the first thing—had forced upon him.
“No problem,” he said, regaining the momentum he’d briefly lost. “There’s plenty of parking around here. Worst case, I walk a block or two.”
“And we’d need the garage cleaned out.”
“Everything will come out of there.”
“And the cedar closets in the basement. You can have the ones we use now.”
She thought she heard him whistle. She couldn’t tell if he was taken aback or impressed by the bargain she was driving. “All of these details can be arranged,” he said. “We can work together on this.”
“I just needed to get these things out in the open.”
He picked up her keys from the bowl on the mule chest and let them twirl in his fingers. “I got you.”
“I’ll talk to Ed.”
“And you’d keep us on?”
“Yes.”
He dropped the keys and straightened up. “At affordable rents?”
“I wouldn’t charge an arm and a leg,” she said. “You folks are like family now.”
“Even if I die?”
“Angelo! My God.”
He gave her a look that suggested he saw her not as a woman but as another man. “I’m asking: even if I die?”
“Even if you die. Of course.”
“I just want to know my family is taken care of,” he said. “I’m not looking to break the bank. I just want to take care of my people.” He backed toward the stairs.
“I understand,” she said, stepping toward him.
“Why don’t we find out how much houses like this are going for, and then you can give me less than that.”
“I need to talk to my husband,” she said again. “We’d have to qualify for a mortgage.”
“Don’t worry.” He had taken a step downstairs and he turned, smiling fully now, so that he almost appeared mirthful. “People like you, with all your affairs in order—you can have anything you want in this country.”