The girl screams. “Yelps” is more accurate, actually. “I’m sorry!” she sputters, hauling ass down the stairs.

“Wait, hold up,” I call. Now I feel bad. I didn’t get a good enough look to notice her age, but high schoolers have broken in before, thinking the place is abandoned, just looking for somewhere to smoke or drink. I probably scared the hell out of her.

“Wait,” I say again, stumbling to the top of the stairs as she reaches the bottom. I’m about to explain myself when my foot catches on the rug. Tillie put them all over the house: braided rugs, Oriental carpets, hand-woven jute ones from craft fairs. Instead of using one rug per room, properly sized, she threw down a collection of small ones wherever she wanted. I’ve been tripping on them since the day I moved in.

I have to admit, though, I’ve never tripped on one at the top of a staircase.

Most of my fall takes place in the air. I land on my bare stomach at the bottom, skidding down the last four or five steps, and flip under the edge of the rug at her feet.

The house crackles around us, like my one sudden impact woke it up from a deep sleep. Then, it’s silent.

“Are you okay?” she whispers.

I think I am, miracle of miracles—until I open my mouth and take a breath to speak.

“Oh, my God,” I groan, as the pain collects in my chest and radiates out to every inch of me. I pull myself down the rest of the staircase and roll onto my back, panting and holding my ribs.

When I open my eyes, she’s hovering over me.

“Should I call someone?”

“No,” I cough. It sends another earthquake of pain through my chest. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Let me see. My aunt used to be a nurse.”

“That’s great,” I wheeze, “because, you know, medical knowledge is inherited genetically.”

She glares at me. “Or,” she counters, “people can, you know, learn things from each other.” As soon as she reaches for me, I flinch and bat her hand away.

“Don’t touch me.”

“I’m helping you.”

“Just give me a minute, okay?” Slowly, I sit up, determined to breathe through it. I pat myself down for anything jagged or dislocated. The only thing I find is blood, when I touch my forehead.

“It’s tiny.” She squints at the wound. “Like, half an inch long, not deep. The ones on your chest are, uh…just scrapes.” While I struggle to my feet, she shakes her car keys. “I can give you a ride to the hospital, if you want.”

“I don’t have insurance.” I kick the rug I landed on into the corner and steady myself before I look at her.

She’s not a high schooler, that’s for sure. She looks about my age, maybe a little younger. Her lips, which she’s biting, are chapped and pink. I stare at them as she speaks.

“I didn’t mean to barge in, I swear. I thought the house was abandoned, and...see, I got this letter, and the envelope said she lived here—”

“Who?” I touch the wound on my head without thinking and wince. “Shit.”

“Here.” She looks around, then ducks into the half-bath under the stairs and emerges with a wad of toilet paper. I take it from her when she tries to press it against my forehead. It startles her, but she takes a breath and moves on. “Um, anyway, I was looking for Tillie.”

Ah, so she’s a collector. This is nothing new. Collections used to call here all hours of the day. When I disconnected the phone, some reps actually started showing up in person, looking for her. Never met one with the nerve to come inside.

“Tillie doesn’t live here anymore,” I tell her, breezing past to grab an ice pack from the kitchen. The wine glasses on top of the fridge rattle as I slam the freezer shut.

“Oh.” The girl leans against the doorjamb. “Do you know where she is now? It’s important.”

Her stare floats in the range of my torso. I assume she’s just checking out the scratches from my fall—until we make eye contact, and she looks away. Fast.

“Look,” I tell her, “I know you’re just doing your job and all, but the woman’s gone. And she probably doesn’t have money to pay you or anyone else. If she did, you think her house would be abandoned?”

“If it’s abandoned,” she says, “what are you doing here?”

I wipe my mouth and turn, surprised to find she’s now only a foot away. “I used to be her tenant. Just stopped by to get the last of my stuff.” As though this proves it, I grab my jacket off the hook by the back door and shrug it on.

“But you knew her?” Her voice gets weird. “Like...you actually knew her?”

“Yeah, kind of. Why’s that matter?” I notice there’s an envelope in her hand, instead of a folder or clipboard, the usual accessories for collectors. “Wait, are you not here from an agency?”

Her eyes widen. “How did you know?”

“So you are from a collection agency.”

She stares at me a second, then shakes her head. “Oh, no, I’m not...I thought you meant....”

Up close, without pain wracking my body, I notice she’s pretty cute. Especially when she blushes. I’d go so far as to think she’s sexy, if she weren’t a home invader.

“Okay,” I say, setting the ice pack on the counter, “you need to tell me who you are.”

Between the shock of getting a clock thrown at my head, and the fact my eyes can’t stay away from his scratches—or rather, the muscles of his scratched chest, still visible through the open jacket—I have no idea what to say.

Instead, I hold up the letter. The guy leans in and reads it, but doesn’t take it from my hand.

“This is from Tillie?”

I nod.

“To you.”

“Yes.” Finally, the words surface: “It was in a file, at this adoption agency.”

Now, he takes the letter. My hand feels strange without it.

“Kathryn,” he says, skimming the contents again. He shoots me a look. “So your name is Kathryn, and you’re Tillie’s daughter?”

“Yes. Well, no—my name is Lila.” My throat feels scorched. I tuck my hair behind my ear and shrug, as if I can make this whole situation smaller, easier to handle. “My parents must have changed it. My adoptive parents, I mean.” I look around the kitchen. “So...she left?”

“Yeah. About six months ago.” His face is softer now, a look I recognize: he feels sorry for me. Maybe it’s because he’s a stranger (or because I just watched him fall down a flight of stairs), but pity doesn’t feel quite so humiliating, coming from him. “Tillie never told me she had a kid.”

“Yeah, well, my parents never told me I was adopted.” It’s only when he snorts that I realize I’ve made a joke.

He presses the toilet paper against his cut, then pulls it back to gauge the blood loss. “I wish I could help you out, Kathryn, but—”

“Lila.”

“Lila. Right.” Blood trickles towards his eyebrow, but I don’t mention it. He clearly doesn’t want my help. “I have no idea where Tillie is. She didn’t warn me she was leaving, didn’t leave a note, nothing. Sorry.”

I nod, already figuring as much, and take a step backwards. “Okay. I’m sorry again, you know...for breaking in.”

“No problem. You were on a mission.”

“If you do hear from her, though,” I say, already turning on my heel, “could you let her know the agency has my contact information, so she....” I pivot back. “You said you’re her tenant?”

“Used to be, yeah. Like I said, I came by to get the rest of my shit.”

“You were asleep in that bed.” I point to the ceiling above us. “And if she’s been gone six months, why are you just now getting your stuff out?”

The guy stares me down. I blink, but don’t look away. “I didn’t have room in my new place to store it all, yet,” he says, voice like steel: smooth, but ice cold.

“And you were sleeping because...?”

“Because I was tired? Because that was my old room?”

“Uh-huh. Just taking a quick nap, shirtless. Whatever.” I stride to the fridge, open it, and point to the light. “And I suppose you have an explanation for why the electricity still works?”

“Hey, why are you grilling me?”

I fold my arms. “I think you’re lying about getting your stuff. I think you’re squatting here.”

“Okay,” he says, “let’s say I am squatting.” He edges by me, gets a soda from the fridge, and opens it, all without breaking eye contact. “What would you do about it?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, probably.”

He hesitates, the bottle poised at his mouth. “I’m squatting.”

“Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why are you staying here, if she’s gone?”

“You ask a lot of questions, you know that?” He sets the bottle down and motions towards the back door.

“It was nice to meet you and all,” he says, holding it open for me, “but like I said, Tillie isn’t here. So...see you around.”

I stay where I am. A chill blows in—not that the house could get much colder. It feels like he hasn’t had the heat on for days. “Can I just ask you a few more things about her? Since you knew her, kind of?”

Again, his face looks kinder than I’m sure he wants it to. He scratches the back of his head and sighs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Thanks.” I stick out my hand, realizing we didn’t have a proper introduction. Any introduction, for that matter. When he shakes it, I say, “Lila Ashbury.”

He nods.

I tilt my head. “And?”

“And...what?”

God, how hard did he hit his head? “And you are?”

“Oh. Shepherd.”

“First or last?”

“Just Shepherd.”

I roll my eyes. “Really? A fake name? I told you, I’m not going to report you for squatting.”

“Shepherd,” he says patiently, zipping his coat, “is my real first name.”

“And your last name?”

“None of your business.” He follows me out onto the back porch. I kick the wet leaves, clumped together and decayed, from the top step and sit. Shepherd takes an overturned plastic crate on the ground in front of me.

I offer up a cigarette. “Smoke?”

“No, but thanks,” he says. “I quit last year.”

I stare at the smoldering end of my cigarette. “Me, too.”

“So why’d you start again?”

Something about Shepherd makes me feel more relaxed than I have in a while. Again, it could be the fact he’s a stranger: I’ve got nothing to lose and no opinion to worry over. It could have nothing to do with him, simply the result of shock as I struggle to accept, in a single weekend, that I’ve got a mom out there again.

Whatever it is that makes it easy to talk to him, I like it. It’s a nice change from guarding myself so closely, the way I always had to with Donnie. And that restless feeling is gone again—as though, right now, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

“My dad getting sick,” I tell him. I flick the ashes into an empty soda bottle nearby. “He had kidney failure.”

“Had?”

“Yeah. He died.” I take another drag and hold it in my lungs, savoring the burn. With this much heat in my chest, it feels like I couldn’t cry even if I wanted to, all the tears evaporated. Which is exactly what I want. I’m tired of crying. “Last Wednesday.”

“Oh.” He shifts on the crate. “I’m sorry.”

I nod my thanks. “So, uh—how long were you Tillie’s tenant?”

“Three years. Give or take a few months.”

“How’d you meet?”

“We used to work together at the Warbler Street outlet,” he says. “She was a cashier, I was stockroom, so it’s not like we talked much, but she heard I needed a place to stay when my dad kicked me out. She asked if I wanted to rent her spare room, and...yeah. That’s about it.”

This catches my attention. “Your dad kicked you out?”

“Hey, you’re here to learn about your mom. Don’t feel pressured to do the normal back-and-forth thing.”

“I don’t feel pressured. I was curious.”

“Anyway,” he goes on, ignoring this, “she’d have me do odd jobs around the place, for lower rent and dinner a few times a month. We got along pretty well.”

“Did she take anything with her?”

He shakes his head. “Just a suitcase and some clothes. Her purse. She didn’t even take her car.”

“So why did you stay?”

“I told you, we aren’t talking about me.” He cracks his thumb inside his fist, sweeping his gaze across the back of the house. “What else do you want to know about your mom?”

Hearing him call her that, even though I’ve been thinking the phrase for hours, trying to make myself believe it, feels strange. I still picture my mom as...well, Mom, the one I grew up with, the one who raised me.

“Whatever you know about her, I guess,” I answer. I stomp out my cigarette and pull my hands into my sleeves, shivering. “I’m not sure where to start.”

Shepherd gets to his feet. “I can do that,” he says, “but let’s go somewhere warm, first. My heaters are broken.”

I raise my eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”

“No need for sarcasm.” He stretches his arms over his head. I try not to stare at the flash of abs I see when his jacket rides up. He notices.

“I’ll get a sweater.” He smiles. It’s the first one I’ve seen him give, and the first one I’ve believed in days.