Page 18 of Hearts to Mend

I scribble notes furiously, boiling with anger that the Smith family, in particular their spoiled son Curtis, is fleecing these elders. Repairs are not the tenant’s responsibility. That’s one of the benefits of living in an apartment.

“Do you know of other repairs they’re not correcting or charging tenants for?”

“Well, my lights flicker funny sometimes. I’ve mentioned that to Curtis, but he ignores me. Pamela upstairs—her kitchen light just plumb stopped working. It’s not the bulb. It’s the whole dang light. Plus, there’s ants everywhere. I’ve got ‘em coming out of the sockets in the walls. And I tell Curtis all this, but does he care? Oh no.”

As Margaret rants, the nurse returns to Margaret’s room to announce, “The doctor is ready to sign your release papers, Margaret. Do you have a way to get home?”

Margaret pauses, considering, so I’m quick to offer. “Matty and I can give you a lift home.”

She smiles softly. “I’d appreciate that, Ricardo. Thank you.”

In a hurry, I move Mateo off my lap so I can lend a shoulder for Margaret to lean on as the nurse helps her into a wheelchair to leave the hospital.

When she’s settled in, her daffodils clutched on her lap, I take Matty’s hand, and we keep pace with Margaret’s wheelchair out to my car. Once I have her comfortably strapped into the passenger seat and Matty in the back, I get in and explain that I’m going to make a quick stop at Walmart. When we’re there, Margaret stays in the car with the AC running while Matty and I hurry inside and buy a small window-unit air conditioner for her apartment. Once we get her home, I take a few moments to install the new unit, and Margaret insists on cooking us dinner.

It’s too late in the evening to knock on doors, asking the neighbors about their repair problems, but over a dinner of spaghetti marinara—the cool breeze of her new AC blowing over us—Margaret outlines exactly who lives where and various maintenance issues they’ve experienced in their units. She even shows me a journal she’s kept of everyone’s complaints, as well as check stubs of her payments for various incomplete repairs.

“May I borrow all this?” I thumb through her meticulous notes.

Margaret nods, seeming proud of her role. And she should be: Margaret is my Deep Throat on this story, the perfect source. With a few confirmations, my elder-abuse exposé is practically written for me.

I’m bubbling with excitement for all the good I can do with this story. But it will have to wait until tomorrow. Matty is starting to yawn, which means he’s about ten minutes away from whining incessantly about everything and nothing. It’s bedtime for my boy.

Thanking Margaret for dinner and the leftovers she packed up for us, we head home. I keep the leftovers in the car—mamá would never forgive me if I put another mom’s cooking in her fridge—and usher Matty through his bedtime routine of teeth, prayers, and stories. This is my favorite time of the day, when it’s just Matty and me, lying side by side on his bed while I read Guess How Much I Love You to him, again. Twice.

It’s our book, the one I would read to him over video calls when I was deployed and he was alone with his mom, stateside. Now, together, we both seem to get something from sharing it in person too.

When I finish the second round, I look over to find Matty sleeping. With a kiss on his forehead, I turn out the light and leave the door cracked open, the hallway light on, just the way he likes it. It didn’t take him long to settle in and feel safe at mamá’s house, and that hall light keeps the nightmares away, so it stays on.

“Why do you smell like garlic?” mamá asks as she comes in through the back door and hugs me.

It’s best to be honest. “I took Matty out to dinner.” It’s mostly honest. I change the subject. “Mamá, do you mind keeping an ear on Matty for me? I thought I’d go into the office for a few hours to get some work done.”

“Of course, mijo,” she says, and I hug her again before I head out the door.

* * *

Dan finds me at the copy machine, making my own copies of Margaret’s notes and check stubs so I can return her originals. “What’s this?” he asks as he holds up the leftover spaghetti. I’d put it in the break-room fridge with a note on it: “Free to a good home in a hungry stomach.” Glad to see it’s found one.

“Spaghetti, courtesy of Margaret Everly,” I say as I move back to my desk with the bundle of originals in one hand, copies in the other.

“I mean this.” Dan sets the air conditioner receipt on my desk.

“It’s for a window unit for Margaret.”

He smirks. “And the paper needs to pay for that, why?”

Defensively, I try to justify the expense, pointing at my piles of papers. “She’s given me a lot of information for this story, and I drove her home from the hospital tonight after she suffered heat exhaustion. I couldn’t leave her to cook in that apartment another night.”

He smirks again. “I’m not the one you’ve got to convince. This goes on Franklin’s desk in finance.”

I groan.

He grins. “Good luck.”

The emergency scanner on the corner of my desk crackles to life, a woman’s voice speaking, “Attention Ladder 12, Engine 12, Engine 31”—that’s Dee—”need to respond to structure fire at 4227 East Elm.”

Ice shoots through my veins at the sound of the address.

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