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I usually have to sit with my head between my knees for a minute to avoid hyperventilating when I think about this too long, but today is a numb day, so I don't have the energy to look at Kimmy's Instagram. Well, okay, I peek at it for just a few minutes, to see if there is anything new.

The numbness turns into a tapping up my spine that feels something like rage when I see her in her white puffer coat and ice skates laced up, standing next to my person. My Reid. Not hers. How is this possible? They're holding two candy canes together making the shape of a heart. Gag. They're smiling at the camera, rosy-cheeked and glittery-eyed. She looks more like his daughter than his new lover.

Okay, I'm being an asshole. I'm sure she's at least legal because Reid is very informed on legal matters of all sorts, which is why he was so prepared to screw me out of everything and even write up an official eviction letter from his house with thirty days notice when I refused to leave.

Fun times at Deer Head Lodge the caption reads. I vibrate with fury, but before I can do anything, like maybe drive to the lodge like a psychopath and push Kimmy from a ski lift and watch her plummet to her death—maybe get impaled by a candy cane if I'm lucky—my phone buzzes.

It's a tenant. Mary Hidleman from 109. And I have to take the call and fix whatever problem she has this time, because as much as it pains me to say, I need the job.

Where else can I go? I quickly run over all my options in my mind the way I often do and always come to the same conclusion. I lost touch with my actual friends years ago when I met Reid, and they're married with families for the most part; they don't want some loser on their couch. My father's a drunk who rents a room in his buddy Oscar's basement, and our mutual friends sided with Reid. He was expert at making me look like this was all my fault, from the crumbling of our relationship to the restaurant "assault." So, I'm here now. I'm somehow the caretaker of The Sycamore apartments, and I'm trapped.

Mary calls for me to come in when I knock. Her apartment is mostly dark, lit only by a droopy string of Christmas lights loosely draped around the front window and flickering light from the television. The Shopping Network is selling adult onesies that look like giant creepy gingerbread people. Mary's in slipper socks and a threadbare housecoat that, in her braless state, leaves little to the imagination.

She sits in her rocker recliner with her legs spread open, chatting to the TV about the economy and the ridiculous prices they're charging for adult pajamas.

"I see London, I see France, Mare," I say matter-of-factly, and she closes her legs and gives me a dismissive wave of her hand. A cigarette hangs from her lips, and she points in the direction of the tiny kitchen.

"I saw him under the sink, but I don't know where he got off to. Little fucker."

I notice a small pistol, sitting right out in the open on her table that's cluttered with ashtrays and junk mail.

"What's that for?" I ask.

"Well, I was gonna try to shoot it, but I thought I'd call you first. See if you got any of those traps that snap their heads off. Or poison, I guess, but I poured some antifreeze on a clump of peanut butter last time I saw a rat, and it didn't do nothin'." She leaps up and starts bending down in search of one.

"You can't shoot a gun in your apartment."

"Well, goddammit, the building keeps gettin' fuckin' rats. What if it gets in my bed? My grandson's coming to visit. I can't have rats in the beds." She steadies herself on the counter, dramatically, at the very thought. "The owners have to do somethin'."

I peer around at the open cans of Hormel chili tinted with a bluish mold, macaroni and cheese left in a pan on the stove that looks like it's congealed into an orange brick, and oil-stained pizza boxes scattered around on end tables and overflowing out of the trash can.

I've never seen a rat in my unit, but I don't say that.

"All I can do is put down a trap—a live trap. Not the kind that snap their heads off," I tell her, and she shrugs. Then I see the smoke alarm on the kitchen wall has been pulled off and is dangling by a couple of wires. I point at it and give her a questioning look. She pushes the butt of her cigarette into a Sprite can.

"Kept going off," she says. 

"Hmm."