Chapter 1

Mr. Henderson smiled, a wide, greasy smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"No problem at all, Dave," he said, clapping the young man on the shoulder. "A loose cabinet door? I'll have my guy up there this afternoon. Can't have your dishes rattling around, can we?"

Dave, who lived two floors above me, grinned back. "Thanks, Mr. Henderson. You're the best."

"Just keeping my good tenants happy," Henderson said loudly, giving me a sideways glance.

I stood by the mailboxes, my own letters clutched in my hand, my stomach twisting. I had been waiting ten minutes for him to finish his friendly chat with Dave. I had been waiting two weeks for him to fix my heater.

As Dave walked away, Henderson's smile vanished. He turned to me, and his face settled into its usual mask of impatience.

"What is it now, Sarah?"

"It's the heater, Mr. Henderson," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "It's still not working, and now there's a strange smell coming from the vents. It's getting cold, and my mother is arriving today for the holidays."

He sighed, a long, exaggerated sound of a man burdened by the world.

"I told you, I have to order a part. These things take time. It's not my fault the supply chain is a mess."

"It's been two weeks," I pressed. "And the smell is new. It's making me dizzy. I'm worried it's not safe."

Henderson scoffed, waving a dismissive hand.

"You women are always worried about something. A smell, a noise, a draft. It's an old building, what do you expect? If you were a little more resilient, you wouldn't notice these things."

He started to walk away.

"Please, Mr. Henderson," I called after him. "My mother is seventy-two. She has a respiratory condition. She can't stay in a cold apartment with a strange smell."

He stopped and turned back, his eyes narrowing.

"That sounds like a personal problem, not a landlord problem. Maybe you should have thought of that before you invited her. I'll get to it when I get to it."

He disappeared into his ground-floor office and shut the door. The sound echoed in the empty hallway. I stood there, feeling cold and small.

Later that afternoon, my mother arrived. I had done my best to warm the apartment with a small electric space heater, but it was a losing battle against the drafty windows and the damp chill that seemed to seep from the walls.

"Oh, Sarah, it's a bit brisk in here," she said, pulling her cardigan tighter as I took her coat.

"I know, Mom. The landlord is supposed to be fixing the heat," I lied, not wanting to worry her on her first day.

We spent the evening catching up, huddled around the little space heater in the living room. I kept the kitchen window cracked open, hoping to air out the faint, sweet, chemical smell, but it only made the apartment colder.

The next morning, I found my mother on the couch, looking pale and confused.

"I have such a headache," she murmured, her words slurring slightly. "And I feel so nauseous."

A spike of pure fear went through me. I touched her forehead, it was clammy and cool. Her breathing was shallow.

"Mom? Mom, can you hear me clearly?"

She just moaned softly.

I grabbed my phone and called for an ambulance. While I waited, I ran to the hallway and banged on Mr. Henderson's door.

It took him a full minute to open it, and he was holding a coffee mug.

"For God's sake, Miller, what is it now? It's eight in the morning."

"It's my mother," I said, my voice shaking with panic. "She's sick. I think it's the smell from the vents. I think it's a gas leak, maybe carbon monoxide. I've called an ambulance."

Mr. Henderson's face showed no concern, only annoyance. He took a slow sip of his coffee.

"Oh, for crying out loud. A gas leak? You're being hysterical. There's no gas leak."

"How do you know? You haven't even checked it!" I yelled, my control snapping. "She's barely conscious!"

He actually laughed, a short, ugly bark.

"She's probably just tired from the trip. Or maybe she's faking it to get some attention. You know how old people are."

He looked me up and down, a smirk playing on his lips.

"You're a single mom, right? Always struggling. Maybe this is some kind of scheme to get a discount on your rent. A sick old mother, a dangerous apartment. It's a classic."

The cruelty of his words hit me like a physical blow. I couldn't even form a response. I just stared at him, my mind reeling.

"Look, I'm a busy man," he said, his tone turning condescending. "I don't have time for your family dramas. The city inspector was here six months ago, everything's up to code. If your mother is sick, take her to a doctor. Don't blame my building for your problems."

He shut the door in my face.

I stumbled back to my apartment, my legs feeling weak. The sound of distant sirens was growing closer. As I knelt by my mother, waiting, I thought of the other women in the building. I remembered Maria from 3B telling me how Henderson took a month to fix her flooding toilet, but fixed the leaky faucet for the single man in 3A the same day she reported it. I remembered Mrs. Chen from the second floor, an elderly widow, who complained for months about a broken lock on her window, and Henderson told her to just "be more careful."

We were all just annoyances to him, hysterical women with our endless complaints.

The paramedics arrived and immediately took a reading of the air. One of them looked at his device and then at his partner with wide eyes.

"Get her out of here, now," he said, his voice urgent. "The CO levels are off the charts. This whole apartment is a death trap."

As they wheeled my mother out, I felt a desperate, helpless rage build inside me. I tried to open the window in my mother's bedroom wider to air the place out, but the old wooden frame was swollen and stuck fast. I pulled and pulled, my fingers raw, but it wouldn't budge. Just another broken thing in a broken apartment, run by a broken man. I was trapped.