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Keeping House
The house came with a handyman. Whatever you do, don’t thank him.
Claire Briggs is an overnight baker who just spent every cent she has on a 1912 three-flat in Logan Square. The city inspector found thirty-seven code violations, and the bank gave her ninety days to fix them all.
Then she comes home from her shift to find the faucet fixed, the cabinet door rehung, and every one of her moving boxes unpacked and labeled in perfect copperplate. One just says Sundries.
The house came with Hayes. He’s tall, polite, and wears a cardigan that went out of style before the First World War. He’s been quietly keeping this house since the first fire was lit in its kitchen stove, and he has never once been past the front gate. He works while she sleeps, he’s paid in bread, and he has exactly one rule: never thank him. Every time someone does, he vanishes into the walls until nightfall.
Claire thanks bus drivers. She thanks pens. She once thanked a bookcase.
Now there’s one item left on the list: a cast-iron boiler Hayes can’t touch. Claire is starting to fall for a man who can’t leave and can’t hear the one thing she most wants to tell him.
