Callie put out plates on her little half-moon table and opened the cartons of Chinese food that had been purchased by her brother, Andy. When he left, he would gather up the trash and the recycling and take them to the chutes in the hallway. It had been like this for years now; even in subtle ways, he helped her more than she could ever help him. Andy was only a year younger than her, and throughout their childhood, they'd traveled more or less the same path. But ever since their college years, Andy had moved steadily ahead of her, and by now, their trajectories had diverged to a point that was painful to acknowledge and impossible to ignore. He had a secure job with benefits (he was a seventh-grade public school teacher); he owned his apartment (a small but appreciating condo in Washington Heights); he even owned a car (an ancient Civic, but still). Every week or so, he came here, to the apartment in Woodside she'd rented for the past seven years, and they'd eat whatever food he'd paid for. She'd run out of paper towels that day and hadn't gotten a chance to go to the store, so they were using the fistful of napkins that had come with the food, but Andy didn't care. That was another problem: he was bothered by so little. He seemed to have no problems at all.

"There's something I want to talk to you about," Andy said.

He put down his spring roll and looked at her in a serious way. Callie felt her shoulders go rigid. She'd had a hard day at work and her goal for the night, once her brother had gone, was to fall asleep watching bad TV. 

"Whatever it is, can we talk about it tomorrow?" she said. "I will be much more receptive then, I promise."

"I'd like to help you buy an apartment. One with a real bedroom for Holly."

Holly was Callie's daughter; she spent half of her time at her father's house in Whitestone. Here, in Callie's apartment, Holly had only an alcove as a room, but she'd never minded. I love everything about my room, she always said, and it seemed this was true: she'd picked out the tapestry they used for the door, and the color for the walls. Callie's boyfriend, who was a carpenter, had outfitted the space with rows of bookshelves and nooks for all her clothes. Holly seemed proud that all of her material belongings fit so well into such a tiny space, and Callie tried hard to see that as something good, and not as some sort of judgment on her.

"I can't let you do that," Callie told Andy. "It's too much."

"We can find a place with a mortgage you can afford," he said. "And I can loan you the money for a down payment. I don't have a lot of savings but I think I have just enough to make this work. You could pay me back eventually, or pay me out of the proceeds if you ever decide to sell. But you would own the apartment. It would be yours. And Holly would have her own room, a real room with a window and a door."

A band of tension tightened around Callie's forehead. She pushed her plate aside. "And what if you need money someday? You won't have any savings left."

"Look," Andy said. "I might never have kids. I know it's maybe weird to say this, but you having Holly isn't just the most important thing in your life. It's the most important thing in mine. Sorry, I know that's weird."

On the way home from work that day, Callie had stopped at a small independent bookstore. She went there often, but she usually only bought books from the discount table in the back. But that day she went straight to the new release table in the young adult section. She wanted to buy something for Holly, who would be home that Friday. A bookseller recommended two books that she said would be perfect for a fourteen-year-old girl who loved witches and magic. One had a jet black cover with its title in embossed gold script, the letters styled to look like vines; the other had a dazzlingly illustration of a teenage girl's face, her eyes piercing and her hair whipped by the fierce winds of some otherworldly landscape. Callie knew she could buy only one. I can't tell you which one to pick, the bookseller had said. They're both amazing!

"I really appreciate the offer," Callie told her brother. "You know how much I'd love to own a home. But I can't. It would take me forever to pay you back."

"Don't worry about that."

"It would take until the end of time."

"Or until you sell the apartment," Andy said in his cheerful way. "Whichever comes sooner."

Callie already knew she would accept the offer. That was part of what made this so hard; unbearable, even. Holly having her own room, a real room—how could she turn that down? And having a bigger place would be better for both of them. Also, she knew her rent would go up at the end of the year, and how would she afford that? If she let Andy help her buy an apartment, it would be the first home she'd ever owned—though she knew she would always think of it as belonging partly to Andy, until she managed to pay him back. Which would never happen.

"I can't even thank you," she said. "It's—"

"You don't have to. You would do the same thing for me."

"Then you'd better give me the chance to do that someday."

"I'll get to work on that." Andy put the last spring roll on her plate. "Look, you're going to be okay. You and Holly, both of you. You're going to be okay."

Callie closed her eyes for a moment. "I don't believe that sometimes. That I'm going to be okay. I want to. But I just don't."

"I know," Andy said. "That's why I'm telling you."

A few hours ago, standing in that bookstore, she hadn't been able to make a decision. What if she chose the wrong book? What if Holly had already read both of them? The bookstore didn't allow returns. Callie stood there for what felt like an hour, contemplating the two books, weighing them in her hands, as if she held her entire future in front of her. And not just her future: Holly's.

Which was crazy. And also not. Because it was two days until her next paycheck, and she knew exactly how much money was in her checking account.

Eventually she thanked the bookseller and went to the counter. She couldn't remember ever having bought two new books at once, certainly not in her adult life. When she handed over her debit card and the woman at the register put the books in a paper bag, Callie had felt a little pinch in her chest, and her eyes had actually stung.

She couldn't have explained that—not to brother, not to herself. She couldn't have put in words how it had felt to walk out of that store with a small but extravagant gift for her daughter, its weight dangling from her hand.