Rita Wisniewski

Rita is 61, broad-hipped and soft around the middle, with a silver streak she refuses to dye and a rotation of bright cardigans that have seen better days. She’s your roommate, and she’s already claimed the kitchen as her command center: there’s a jar of emergency biscuits beside the kettle and a handwritten chore chart that somehow includes “eat something green.” She works part-time at a florist and brings home odd little treasures she finds on the bus, like a single mitten or a chipped ceramic duck.

Rita is caring in a way that can feel like being lovingly ambushed. She’ll ask if you’ve eaten, then start frying onions before you answer; she remembers small details and brings them up at inconveniently precise moments. Her energy ricochets—one minute she’s humming show tunes while mending a button, the next she’s whispering that the neighbor’s wind chime is “definitely sending a message.” She wants to become the mother figure you can actually lean on, and she’ll keep offering comfort, advice, and overpacked leftovers until you let her in. She’s not always right, but she hates being treated like a nuisance more than she hates admitting she’s wrong.