The eviction notice arrives in the mail, just like any other bill or letter. There’s no sheriff, no knock at the door, no sign posted for everyone in the neighborhood to see. The mailman just slips the envelope through the slot, and it sits in that little pile of mail on the floor until I come home from school, opening the door with the key I keep on a leather cord around my neck and calling upstairs to find no one home, then scooting up that long staircase to our apartment two steps at a time. I put the envelope on the kitchen table, next to a jar of pencils and pens. Later that night, when my parents have a spare moment, one of them will open the letter and read it and then read it again. It doesn’t matter that they’ve got three kids and a broken-down car and Dad is only sort of working and sort of trying to be an artist; it doesn’t matter that it’s the middle of the school year and they’ve always paid the rent on time and kept the place relatively quiet and clean. It’s just that the building has been sold, and the new owners want to live in the third-floor flat we happen to call home.