The Landlord’s Game of Control

Mr. Henderson' s smile, wide and greasy, never reached his eyes.

"What is it now, Sarah?" he' d asked, after ignoring my pleas for two weeks to fix the heater in my drafty apartment.

He dismissed the strange, sweet smell coming from the vents as just an "old building" problem, scoffing that "You women are always worried about something."

But the real insult came when my 72-year-old mother, who' d arrived for the holidays, collapsed, pale and confused, her words slurring, from what I suspected was that very smell.