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Josiahspent his afternoon cleaning every inch of the Pearce home’s downstairs, because he couldn’t sit still. Since he’d had so few spaces of his own, he’d learned to keep them neat and tidy. Messes and crumbs enticed roaches and bugs, and he didn’t want that, especially in a place where he didn’t live. He got a few curious looks from Elmer, but his patient mostly watched TV and ignored Josiah’s manic dusting, polishing, window washing, and sweeping of every surface he could safely reach.
He needed a step stool for one spot around the living room’s big stone fireplace and chimney, though.
If Elmer wondered, he didn’t ask, and Josiah silently thanked the elderly man for his discretion. Josiah just needed to stay busy right now, damn it, so his brain didn’t focus too much on last night and this morning. On his bruises and sore ribs and very real fear that when he went home tonight, he’d find his stuff in the driveway. Or worse, in the garbage cans.
One night. One time he’d been late and forgotten a date. And it had cost him. Dearly.
Thankfully, his minor breakdown at the Pearce house hadn’t cost him his job, and if the worst happened, he’d have a place to live temporarily. Taking a room from Michael didn’t feel a whole lot different than his room with Seamus, because of the uneven power dynamic, but something about Michael made Josiah want to trust him. Josiah wasn’t quite sure yet if he did trust Michael, but he wanted to. A lot.
So he cleaned and tried not to think about what was waiting for him when he went home—no, back to Seamus’s house. For all that the place had been his “home” these last two years, its four walls were no longerhome.It was a house and a room. A room that had never truly been Josiah’s. Everything had always belonged to Seamus, from the room to the furniture to Josiah’s own body. Even his own damned paycheck had been under Seamus’s control.
No more. He’d go to the bank tomorrow and change that. Do whatever he needed so he had his own money going forward. He wouldn’t live on the streets again. Never again.
He finally quit cleaning a little after five and collapsed onto the sofa near Elmer. Elmer was watching a local news broadcast and hadn’t said much to Josiah in the past hour, not since he last needed to use the bottle for personal business. Josiah eyeballed the card table he’d set up nearby with a two-hundred-piece puzzle on it that they’d begun yesterday, mostly to exercise Elmer’s dexterity and coordination.
They hadn’t made much progress.
The cleaning supplies were all neatly stored away underneath the kitchen sink when Michael returned home from the second half of his day. Michael, who exuded warmth and safety and kindness, and whose presence made Josiah feel less like a clueless mess. More in control of his life and surroundings. But it was a false sense of control, because Josiah wasn’t in control. Hadn’t been for pretty much his entire life and probably never would be.
All he could do was fake it one day to the next.
“Staying for supper?” Michael asked from the kitchen. Josiah got a brief glimpse of him pulling something out of the freezer before Michael moved out of his line of sight.
“I can’t, but thank you,” Josiah replied. Since he wasn’t here over the weekend, he gathered up his book and cloth bag he brought snacks in. Even though his clients almost always said to help himself to their food, keeping his own was a habit he couldn’t seem to break.
“See you Monday,” Elmer said.
“See you then. Good night, Elmer. Michael.”
“Night!” Michael shouted back from the kitchen.
Normally, Josiah would leave proud of himself for his first full week at a new job, with a new patient. Tonight, he walked out with dread in his gut, his feet leaden and not wanting to carry him forward. Yes, he’d done well with Elmer and he liked the man very much. Michael, too. His melancholy wasn’t about them; it was about leaving.
Seamus’s car was in the driveway, which was a bit unusual, but Josiah had left a roast in the slow cooker, so Seamus would have had dinner ready to eat. Josiah got out on stiff legs and trod up the stone path to the porch. Up its three wide steps and across to the front door. Grabbed the knob and turned.
It was locked.
Startled, because Seamus didn’t usually lock the front door until after dark, Josiah found his house key. It went into the knob but nothing turned. “What the hell?” He tried his key in the dead bolt and it didn’t work, either. Icy panic filled his stomach. Why the hell had Seamus changed the locks? Almost everything Josiah owned was in that house.
He hoped.
Real terror flooded his veins as he circled the house to the backyard. They didn’t have any sort of town trash service, so Seamus stored their trash in the garage out back and made a dump run about once a month. The garage door was locked, too, which it never was, and he couldn’t see if the cans were overflowing in the dim interior. Hands shaking and heart trying to break through his ribs, Josiah approached the rear door of the house. The kitchen door.
With no real hope of it working, Josiah tried his key. Useless. The door’s single curtain was closed, and the narrow set of steps didn’t extend far enough for him to look in through any of the other kitchen windows. Josiah was too short, the house’s foundation too high so he couldn’t see shit. He banged his fist against the back door. “Seamus! Let me in!”
Several agonizing moments of silence passed. Threatening to call the police dangled on the tip of his tongue for a split second before he remembered his place. Seamus was the fucking sheriff and Josiah’s name wasn’t on the mortgage. He hadn’t signed any official lease giving him rights to access this property. Technically, he was trespassing.
“Seamus, please! What’s going on?”
Determined to be a nuisance until he got answers—or at least his fucking phone charger and some clothes—Josiah called Seamus. Seamus shocked the hell out of him by answering the call, but his terse, “I’m busy, call back,” and hang-up stunned Josiah into momentary paralysis.
Seamus’s car was here, so he had to be home. Had to have heard Josiah banging and yelling. What was he playing at? He called again but it went right to voice mail, which was unusual. As the sheriff, Seamus’s phone was almost always on in case of emergencies. But what if he wasn’t actually home? The house seemed dark, and he hadn’t heard Seamus’s phone’s ringtone. It wasn’t a huge house.
Frustration began overtaking some of his fear and he stabbed out a text:
If you’re home let me in. Now.
No response.
