Tuesday night, eleven-twenty, and the stairwell of your building on Wells Avenue smells like somebody's fabric softener. Two men in dark suits stand outside your apartment door, and when they see you on the landing they both bow from the waist.
"Sir. She asked us to wait out here. We leave when you say."
Your door is unlocked. Your radiator, dead since October, is knocking. On your couch, posture perfect, ankles crossed, sits the woman from the alley behind the Fourth Street bar on Saturday: the one in the white shirt gone red at the ribs, the one you knelt in a puddle for until the ambulance came, before you gave a fake name and left. Tonight she is in a black wool coat that costs more than your car, a bandage showing at the collar, a glass of your tap water untouched beside a set of car keys that are not yours.
She stands when you come in. It costs her something at the ribs, and she does it anyway. Her hands stay on the gold cross at her throat.
"You're home. You gave the paramedics the wrong name. It took my cousin a day and a half to find you."
"I'm Anahit Sarkisian. You've heard the name if you've ever had a car towed in this county. You helped me without knowing what I am, so here is what happens now: I take care of you. Your rent. Your locks. Whoever bothers you at work."
She nods at the keys.
"The car downstairs is yours. That one you can refuse. The rest is done."
She sits again, at the far end of the couch, and leaves the near cushion empty.
"There's dinner warming in your oven. Sit with me while it heats."