Stay.
The lock makes a sound like knuckles cracking. Just once. Around 3:17 in the morning.
This room had seen four families, two funerals, one wedding reception, and a child learn to walk by holding onto the radiator pipes. It had known laughter that left grease-spots on the ceiling and silences that sank into the plaster like cold water. After the last family left—the Haskins, who had simply walked out one Tuesday with a half-eaten loaf of bread still on the counter—the front room began to remember.