The coffee filters were on the top shelf, but Kayla kept asking Andrew to reach them whenever she crossed our kitchen in a towel. She called it a test, even after I told her to stop. On Sunday, Andrew set down his coffee, unlocked his phone, and showed her why he’d stopped leaving the room that day.
One morning, after I’d already asked my sister to stop walking through our kitchen in nothing but a towel, she asked my husband to reach the coffee filters for her.
Andrew looked at the cabinet.
Then at Kayla.
Then he picked up his coffee and walked out of the room.
She asked my husband to reach the coffee filters for her.
Kayla watched him go.
“What’s his problem?”
I shut the cabinet she’d left open.
“You’re his problem.”
She laughed.
That was what finally got me.
“What’s his problem?”
***
Two weeks earlier, Kayla had arrived at our door with two suitcases, $287 in her checking account, and mascara dried beneath both eyes.
Her boyfriend of six years had told her to leave their apartment.
I hadn’t asked whether she could afford a hotel.
Kayla had arrived at our door.
