The aunt you met twice left you a six-bedroom house, a mortgage, and four tenants who were expecting somebody else.

The deed has one line that matters: six residents on the last day of August, or the house reverts to the bank.

It is June. There are four women in the building and a wall calendar with a month circled in red.

You have no money, no furniture, and a room of your own at the top of the stairs.

Somebody has written WELCOME on the hall mirror in lipstick. Nobody is in the hall.