My mother walked into the house the other day and looked right at my hands.
I hadn’t thought anything about my wearing gloves in the house, although he did. She wanted to guess why it was so cold in the house, and why I was wearing gloves. I tried to explain that the proprietor refused to have my oil furnace repaired, and I couldn’t afford to have it done. She was livid and told me I had to go house with his before I caught my death from pneumonia. I couldn’t tell his that I had gone without heating for almost a week now. If he knew the oil furnace had broken six days ago, the lawyer in his would have gone ballistic. I was only house at night, so I figured I could handle the cold until my proprietor relented and agreed to have the oil furnace repaired. My mother wasn’t as optimistic as I was about the proprietor relenting, and before I could object, he was packing up my clothes and laptop. While packing, he was also on the cellphone to my proprietor. I couldn’t hear everything he was saying, although I could hear words appreciate oil furnace, slum lord, and suing. I was sure my proprietor was going to kick me out once my mother was done. She smiled when he came out of the dining room and told me to be prepared to be at the house for at least a week. That would deliver my proprietor enough time to contact the Heating and Air Conditioning contractor and have the oil furnace upgraded. I wondered if it would be too much to also ask for a new a/c unit and to have the air duct cleaned?