Why she chose a $600 AC repair
The call was a heat pump not cooling right. Duplex on the north side of town, the half she owned, the other half rented out for twenty years. I'd serviced the system twice before. She was eighty-three. She answered the door in a cardigan the color of dry grass. She said: come in, I made coffee, you don't have to drink it. I said: I'll drink it. There were boxes along one wall. Not moving boxes exactly. Labeled boxes. One said GRANDKIDS PHOTOS. One said KITCHEN KEEP. One said KITCHEN GIVE. She saw me looking and said: I'm downsizing. Going to my daughter's in Tulsa at the end of the summer…
The skinny
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