Chapter 1 - Fourth Quarter
By the time Tasha Reed reached apartment 3B, the plastic handles of the grocery bags had carved red grooves into her fingers.
She had worked ten hours at the insurance office, spent forty minutes crawling through traffic, stopped for groceries with money she had mentally divided three different ways, and climbed two flights because the elevator was broken again.
Inside the apartment, digital sneakers squeaked across a television basketball court.
Tasha pushed the door open with her hip.
“Malcolm?”
No answer.
She entered sideways, balancing four heavy grocery bags and her work tote. Dirty dishes covered the coffee table. A takeout container sat open beside two empty soda cups. Laundry overflowed from a white basket near the couch.
Malcolm Reed sat three feet away wearing gray sweatpants, a black T-shirt, and a gaming headset.
His thumbs moved rapidly over the controller.
“Malcolm, can you help me?”
“Hold on.”
His eyes never left the television.
“Fourth quarter.”
Tasha stared at the side of her husband’s face.
Three years earlier, she had married a man who would carry every grocery bag in one trip just to make her laugh.
Six weeks into unemployment, she barely recognized the man on the couch.
One bag split.
Two cans of soup struck the hardwood floor. A jar rolled beneath the coffee table.
Malcolm glanced over.
For one second.
Then he looked back at the game.
Tasha slowly lowered the remaining bags.
“I worked ten hours today.”
“And I told you I’d clean later.”
“When is later?”
He sighed into his headset.
“Can we not do this right now?”
Something inside her became frighteningly still.
She took off her coat, revealing the blouse beneath it and the company badge hanging from her neck.
“I paid the electric bill this morning.”
Malcolm pressed a button.
“I know.”
“I bought groceries.”
“I see that.”
“I washed your clothes before work.”
“Nobody asked you to.”
The words landed harder than he intended.
Tasha’s expression changed.
Malcolm finally looked at her.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No. Say it again.”
“Tasha.”
“Nobody asked me?”
He removed one side of the headset.
“I’m saying you keep doing everything, then acting like I forced you.”
Her mouth opened slightly.
She looked toward the sink filled with dishes.
The laundry.
The unopened mail.
The trash Malcolm had promised to take downstairs two nights ago.
“You’re right,” she said softly.
Something about her calmness made Malcolm pause the game.
Tasha bent to retrieve the jar beneath the coffee table.
That was when she saw the envelope.
It was partially hidden beneath another controller.
PAST DUE.
She pulled it free.
Malcolm stood.
“Tasha—”
Her eyes moved across the page.
Rent balance: $2,430.
Her stomach tightened.
“What is this?”
Malcolm rubbed the back of his neck.
“I was going to handle it.”
“With what money?”
“I said I’m handling it.”
“I transferred sixteen hundred dollars for rent twelve days ago.”
Silence.
Tasha looked up.
“Malcolm.”
He turned away.
She walked to his laptop.
The same job-search page she had opened for him that morning was still on the screen.
Same listings.
Same search.
Not one application confirmation.
“Did you apply anywhere today?”
He looked insulted by the question.
“I needed a mental break.”
“A break from what?”
“Tasha—”
“No. Tell me.”
She dropped her work tote.
“A break from what?”
Malcolm’s face hardened.
“I lost my job. You think I feel good about that?”
“No.”
Her voice trembled.
“But feeling bad isn’t a job.”
He stared at her.
“So now I’m useless?”
“I didn’t call you useless.”
She pointed at the controller.
“I said you’re watching me drown while you sit there.”
Malcolm rose.
“I’m trying to get myself together.”
“Then get up!”
Her voice cracked through the apartment.
“You lost your paycheck, Malcolm. Not your hands.”
The hallway door opened behind her.
Aunt Kendra stood there in a tan coat, keys still in her hand.
She had come to return a casserole dish.
Instead, she looked from Tasha’s exhausted face to Malcolm’s controller to the apartment around them.
“This,” Kendra said slowly, “is what she comes home to?”
Malcolm’s jaw tightened.
“Stay out of it.”
Kendra stepped inside.
“She’s carrying this entire apartment.”
Her eyes dropped to his controller.
“You’re carrying that.”
“Both of y’all need to stop talking to me like I’m a child.”
Tasha picked up the controller from the couch.
Malcolm instinctively reached for it.
She placed it carefully on top of the overdue notice.
“I can survive one unemployed month,” she said.
He looked at her.
“I will not survive raising a grown man.”
The anger vanished from Malcolm’s face.
For the first time that night, shame appeared.
Tasha unclipped her work badge.
“Tomorrow, you either start looking for work and helping in this house—”
She swallowed.
“—or you start looking for somewhere else to live.”
Malcolm stared at her as if she had struck him.
“You’d put your own husband out?”
“I need a partner.”
She looked at the overdue notice.
“Not another bill.”
Then Kendra noticed something.
She picked up the rent notice.
Her brow tightened.
“Tasha.”
“What?”
Kendra pointed to the payment history printed near the bottom.
“There was a returned payment last week.”
Tasha frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Malcolm moved toward her.
“Kendra, give me that.”
Kendra stepped back.
Tasha took the paper.
The returned payment was not sixteen hundred dollars.
It was three thousand.
From a bank account Tasha didn’t recognize.
She looked at Malcolm.
“What account is this?”
Malcolm said nothing.
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And suddenly Tasha understood that the apartment mess was not the problem.
It was only the first thing she had noticed.
