2
Jem got to the little brick bungalow in Federal Heights a few minutes before Tean. Part of that was the simple fact that the old Kawasaki could split lanes and cut through the mid-morning traffic in a way that the moving truck couldn’t. And part of it was because Jem wanted to get there first.
He rolled to a stop in the driveway and idled there for a moment.
Then he walked the bike forward until the front tire was almost brushing the garage door.
He looked up and down the block as he killed the engine.
The street was lined with similar houses: seventy years old, built when people had somehow managed to stuff eight kids and two adults into a home with three bedrooms and one bath.
The lawns were yellow, the grass dormant, but neatly kept.
Some rust of the chain-link fences. Cracked sidewalks.
But, for the most part, everything well-maintained and neatly kept.
This was how he came home now.
He let the engine die and walked up onto the wide front porch. The steps were solid. A board creaked. He’d be in bed some night, Tean coming home late from a trip, and he’d hear the board creak, and by then they’d know this house inside and out, and he’d roll over in bed and think, Oh, Tean’s home.
The key turned easily. He needed to get the locks changed. They could do something with the old keys, maybe. What did people do with old keys? Frame them? Or just throw them in the junk drawer. They’d have a junk drawer, obviously. In the kitchen.
Inside, the house was stuffy with trapped sunlight.
The last owners had knocked out walls to combine the living room and kitchen, something the builders had probably never dreamed of.
But the floors were still the original hardwood, the oak so pale it was almost white.
More creaky noises. He’d lie in bed, only half-awake, and he’d hear Tean coming through the house.
The fireplace, that was the big win. They could hang stockings at Christmastime.
And Tean would build fires in the fall. Roasting marshmallows from the comfort of your own sofa—that sounded nice.
Plenty of room for a Christmas tree, too, and they’d stack the presents just right so they’d look nice.
Jem had seen videos of how to do it online.
Still a couple of months until Christmas.
Thanksgiving first, and even though the kitchen was objectively small, it was still so much bigger than the one in Tean’s apartment.
A breakfast bar where they could lay out all the food, buffet style, because obviously you couldn’t fit everything on your plate.
And Scipio would need a plate too. Tean wouldn’t make too much of a fuss about the dog getting turkey, but Jem knew he’d have to sneak the mac and cheese when Tean wasn’t looking.
He followed the hall past the main-floor laundry (a big upgrade). Tean wouldn’t want clothes on the floor, obviously. And they couldn’t have laundry baskets here, cluttering up the walkway. Jem would have to stay on top of the laundry. He’d make it a routine. He’d do it twice a week.
Okay, maybe once a week.
The home’s only bathroom had a checkerboard tile across the floor and three-quarters of the way up the walls.
The pedestal sink would have to go; they’d get something with storage space.
And the toilet still had one of those padded seats that made Jem think of broken tailbones and were super gross. Easy fix, though.
He passed the stairs to the basement—unfinished, which meant a lot of possibilities, plus Jem liked the idea of food storage, and Tean sending him down to check if they had any, well, any of whatever Tean needed.
The smaller bedroom was on the left—that could be Tean’s office or his study or his den, or whatever he wanted to call it.
Sometimes, Tean liked to read stuff for work.
At the apartment, he’d used the little dinette table, but they’d get him a good desk.
And a recliner, too, so he’d be comfortable.
God, it was a shame Tean didn’t smoke a pipe.
The bedroom at the back wasn’t much larger, hardly enough of a distinction to call it the primary bedroom or the owner’s or whatever.
The carpet would have to go, but that wasn’t hard; Jem could pull out carpet.
And they definitely needed a new bed. Jem wasn’t sure how long Tean had owned his current mattress, but the number was somewhere in the double digits.
They’d sleep here. And they’d wake up here.
Sometimes, at night, he’d had have to ask Tean to turn off the light because Tean liked to read, and sometimes he got lost in a good book.
And in the morning—when Jem didn’t have to go to work—there’d be those slow, lazy, wonderful waking-ups, when it came on by degrees, and you didn’t have to beat four other kids to the bathroom or be downstairs by seven or you wouldn’t get any breakfast, when you didn’t have to worry about anyone charging into the room and shouting at you and dragging you out of bed.
Tean would get up first, obviously, but Jem and Scipio would just lie there, listening to the sounds of Tean moving around the house.
Around their home.
The sound of the door came, and a moment later, Tean called, “Jem?”
“Yeah,” Jem said. “Back here.”