Under his plate was a single sheet of county records. The basement unit had never been permitted as a dwelling. No egress window, no separate smoke detection, no certificate of occupancy, and a bedroom below grade rented at market rate for eleven months. Beneath that was the printout of the complaint Adelaide had filed with the housing office that morning, reference number visible, and a copy of the state statute on unlawful entry with the relevant subsection underlined in pencil. She had not shouted at him once. She had simply spent an afternoon on the phone while I was at work.

He offered me the room free for a year. Adelaide said no on my behalf, politely, and then told him what she actually wanted, which was every dollar of the eleven months’ rent returned, because a landlord cannot collect on an illegal unit and he had known that when he listed it. He paid it in three instalments. Eight thousand four hundred dollars.

The inspector came anyway. Adelaide had not withdrawn anything, and she had never said she would. The basement was ordered sealed and Dorian spent most of my refund putting in an egress window he now cannot legally rent out to anyone without a permit he will not get.

I moved out in October. Corinne had the baby in December and she messaged me once, a long message, apologising for things she had watched happen at her own kitchen table and said nothing about. I answered kindly. We are not in touch.

I live in a small flat with a proper kitchen and a door that only my key opens. I cook a lot. I still give food away, to people who ask.

Adelaide is eighty-two. She made the lemon cake again in March and she made it the same size as always, on purpose, and she said so.

I spent eleven months believing that being agreeable was the price of having somewhere to live. My grandmother taught me in one evening that a person who takes from you quietly is counting on you never checking whether they are allowed to. Looking it up is not aggression. It is simply refusing to disappear.