Family Landlords Raise the Rent to Force One Sister Out
By four in the afternoon, the light outside had begun to dim, the gray mist thickening into a steady drizzle that blurred the outlines of the houses across the alley.
I did not turn on the overhead light, preferring the small circle of yellow that came from the brass desk lamp on my writing table.
This lamp had been my grandfather’s, a heavy piece of solid metal with a green glass shade that my mother had tried to throw away when they cleared out his house in Beaverton.
I had carried it to my car in a garbage bag, keeping it hidden under the spare tire until I had my own place to put it.
Now, its weight was anchor-like on the corner of my desk, its light falling across the white pages of my notebook and the edge of my keyboard.
I finished the last paragraph of the copy for the land trust, checking the character count against the client’s specifications before saving the file to the shared agency drive.
