The next morning I made a scramble. Breakfast is my favorite meal to cook. Jack helped and then went to get Mom. They were talking about the empty houses when they came into the kitchen. “I can’t believe the banks just let the yards die off like that,” he complained. “Don’t they know that hurts the value of the house, and everything around?” “Why do you care?” Mom asked. “You never believed in owning real estate, did you?” “I hate to see waste. There are too many homeless people to have houses sitting empty all over this country, left to fall apart.” Jack turned to me. “Anything I can do to help?” “Plates are in that cupboard, silverware in that drawer,” I said. “Put the plates here and I’ll dish this up when it’s done.” “Having homeless people move in wouldn’t help much,” said Mom. She got juice out of the fridge and took it to the table. “They wouldn’t be able to take care of the houses. Ownership’s not cheap.” “They’ll have to sell them under market, the way they’ve let them go. That won’t help your investment.” Mom looked at him like he was speaking an alien language that she understood, but she didn’t expect him to understand. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Even if they sell at a depressed price, the new owners will invest enough getting them fixed up to bring their equity back in line with the rest of the neighborhood. It’ll work out.” “If you don’t have to sell before that happens.” He pointed at Mom. “You should be making a fuss, now, before they sell.” She stretched her neck, tilting her head side to side and rolling once each way. “I hadn’t planned on moving anytime soon.” I caught the past tense – that’s what happens when your parent is an OCD teacher. I whipped around to face her, dropping some scramble from the spatula onto the floor. I didn’t care. “You’re going to sell our house?” I demanded. She took a slow breath before she answered – always a bad sign. “I’ve expanded my job search. We might have to move.” “Great.” I turned away from her and finished dishing up the scramble. I kept blinking to hold back the tears. Everyone was away for the summer. If we left before they came back, would I ever see my friends again? “It’s not a definite,” she was saying. “I’m checking every day for new postings, but there’s nothing within fifty miles of here. French teachers just aren’t in demand.” By the time the plates were ready to take to the table, Jack was cleaning up the mess I made on the floor with a paper towel. “Thanks,” I said as I stepped past him. I couldn’t look at Mom yet. She couldn’t know how close to tears I was. She was doing her best. I knew that. After breakfast, which was really quiet, Mom went back to her job hunt on the computer. Jack helped me clean up the kitchen. “Can you print from that computer of yours?” he asked. “Yeah, it’s wi-fi’d with Mom’s printer.” He looked at me. “Wi-fi like they have in coffeeshops?” “Kind of, but it’s just our local network. We have a password so people driving by can’t access it for anything disgusting or illegal.” “Okay,” he said. “Is it too old-fashioned to print out some flyers offering handyman and babysitting services? Figured we could take them around and introduce ourselves.” I wiped the table and counters. The kitchen was done. “Actually, that’s a good idea. There’s one family I’ve worked for a little. I’ll call and ask if I can give their name and number as a reference. We should put our pictures on it, too. You look nice this morning.” I slapped my hand up against my mouth, but he laughed. “I was pretty scruffy after that bus ride.” “Why didn’t you fly?” “Bus was cheaper by almost a hundred bucks. Train would have been better, but it was almost as much as flying.” I understood being careful with money. Even before she lost her job, Mom had always watched our spending – like not getting cable. She did agree to getting an antenna and we picked up quite a few options with that. “Will your mother see the flyers on her printer?” he asked. He seemed worried. I started to ask why when it hit me. “You’re staying more than a few days, aren’t you.” He grimaced. “Well, I’m not sure where else to go. I’m too dang old for sleeping under bridges. And it seems like Alice can use some help right now.” I thought a moment. “If she sees the flyers, she’ll know you’re planning to stay awhile, but she’ll also see you’re looking for work, and Mom likes that. The only reason I haven’t done more babysitting is we’re away most holidays and during the school year, she says that’s my job… It’ll be okay, whether she sees the flyers or not.” As it turned out, by the time I’d taken and uploaded a photo of Jack and we designed a great flier together, Mom was taking a break, making coffee in the kitchen, so she didn’t even hear her printer.
Update 12/14/2020: I stopped posting Alice because no one was reading it. The book is available on Amazon.
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