Her Bargain Rental Favor

I went numb from my scalp to the soles of my feet.

“Claire, is this what you meant by a man raising his children alone? With no woman around him?”

Claire’s face flushed, then went pale. She looked as if she was scrambling for an explanation.

But the facts were right in front of us. After hesitating for a long time, she could only say, “His parents and his brother were worried about him, and the house in their hometown is too old...”

“Claire.”

I cut her off through gritted teeth, each word sharp and deliberate.

“Your mother’s place back home is tiny and drafty. She sleeps curled up in the corner of her bed every night, but she refused to move in with us because she didn’t want to bother us.

“Just yesterday, she stepped into a puddle and hurt her leg. A neighbor had to take her to the village clinic.

“And now you’re telling me you moved Mark’s entire family of six into my massive downtown apartment, a place worth ten thousand a month on the rental market, for three hundred dollars?

“Is Mark out of his mind, or are you?”

Claire panicked.

“She fell? How bad is it? What did the doctor say?”

I gave a cold laugh and turned toward the bedroom.

“If you actually cared, you wouldn’t have shut off your phone because you found it annoying when the neighbor tried to reach you.”

Behind me, she called out, “Noah, I’ll take care of things with my mom... As for Mark, I really didn’t mean to hide it from you. Don’t keep all that anger bottled up. It’s bad for your health.”

I didn’t stop walking.

“Clean up the kitchen and the living room. You can sleep on the couch tonight.”

After closing the bedroom door, I looked down and took the ring out of my pocket.

It was supposed to be my anniversary gift to her.

I had planned to surprise her tonight, then use the occasion to talk to her about bringing her mother to the city.

The house back home was too run-down. It wasn’t a suitable place for an elderly woman to live.

Who would have thought that before we even took a bite of dinner, I would see Mark’s message?

Our seventh wedding anniversary was ruined just like that.

The next morning, when I came out of the bedroom, the living room had been restored to normal. Claire had gone to work.

There was an apology from her on my phone.

But every one of those dozen or so messages was about how hard Mark had it.

I didn’t reply. I took Daisy to kindergarten first, then drove to the downtown apartment complex.

After I entered the passcode wrong three times, the door was yanked open impatiently from the inside.

“Who is it? You’re breaking into someone’s home in broad daylight now?”

I stared at the scruffy man in front of me and recognized him as Mark’s younger brother, Ryan Lewis.

Mark came out of the kitchen. The moment he saw me, his eyes widened.

“What are you doing here?”

Ryan glanced me up and down.

“Mark, is this a friend of yours? He’s got no manners. Who goes to someone else’s place and punches in the passcode instead of ringing the bell?”

He rolled his eyes and walked into the largest master bedroom.

Mark quickly put his daughter down. His eyes flickered away from mine, and he looked visibly uneasy.

“Noah Bennett, what brings you here?”

I stepped inside with a dark expression and glanced around the apartment.

“Do I need to report to anyone before coming back to my own home?”

The moment I finished speaking, someone entered the passcode at the door.

Claire walked in as if she had done it a hundred times before. She was just about to change her shoes when she saw me, and her whole body went stiff.

“Why... why are you here?”

At that moment, the whole thing was so absurd that I didn’t even know where to begin.

“Claire, why are you here?

“At this hour, shouldn’t you be at work?”

She froze, unable to answer.

Mark hurried over to smooth things over.

“Noah, don’t blame Claire. I asked her to come. The bedding at home... it needed changing, and I was worried I’d buy the wrong kind...”

Before he could finish, he shut his own mouth.

He couldn’t choose underwear for Lily, and now he couldn’t choose a bedding set either?

Whether it was really because of the bedding, he knew better than anyone.

Claire tugged at my sleeve.

“Honey, let’s go home first. I’ll explain everything slowly.”

I met her eyes and asked, “Which part do you want to explain?”

“Which part, Claire? The apartment? The job? The school place? Or the fact that you had time for Mark’s children while Daisy was sick in the hospital?”

Her expression changed. While she stood there, hesitating and lost for words, the door to the second bedroom opened.

Mark’s parents came out, no longer dressed in the shabby clothes I remembered from the countryside. They were polished and well dressed, and they gave me a disdainful glance.

“Oh. It’s the younger Whitman girl’s husband.”