Route 12 by Miles Marietta

Author:Miles, Marietta [Miles, Marietta]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: All Due Respect Books
Published: 2016-02-13T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

KATHRYN RATTLES THE ice in her empty cup. The bottle is dead as well. Can’t catch a break. Frustrated, she continues boxing up Mrs. Manson’s personals. With Cheryl in school, the boy upstairs God knows where and Mrs. Manson, well, gone, the house is dead. She thought she would enjoy the peace but now, she’s simply unnerved. A little drink to take off the edge.

She labels the boxes with a black marker: clothes, pictures, papers. She expects the son will be calling soon, asking for these things. They had briefly talked the night his mother passed. He seemed reserved, cool. Maybe he can pay for postage. Maybe he’ll offer her money. Maybe.

She stands in the old woman’s doorway, sad at the emptiness. She considered moving into the room herself as the basement was proving to be cold rather than chilly. But, the idea of sleeping in a dead woman’s bed made her skin crawl. Besides, her own bad habits are getting out of hand and she doesn’t want Cheryl to see how much she has been drinking.

If she moved to the attic though, she could be alone. And it’s warm up there. She would move back to the attic and Percy could take the room across from Cheryl. The bourbon made her head fuzzy. She stopped for a minute trying to think clearly. Something sounded off, wrong. She thought on it again, almost saying the words to the air. Percy could sleep across from her daughter.

No matter how she tried to rearrange the words, they sounded awful and didn’t make sense. There’s a stranger living in my house. She’s stunned by the realization, then, slowly, by her own stupidity. Old drunk. She bitterly remembers a time when her own mother left her at church one Sunday.

She stands at the attic steps, peeking through Cheryl’s window and makes sure his car is gone.

“Hello?” Her voice sinks in the silence. Chills crawl up her legs and back. She stops midway.

“Percy? You up here?”

The room looks almost as it did before he moved in. The single bed is against the back wall, a small dresser next to that. She had packed up all the old toys, clothes, and pictures in trunks, moving them to the back of the attic. Not even a pile of dirty clothes.

His black bag lies partially under the bed and when she checks it, she finds less than she would have expected. He has another pair of jeans, one pair of socks, and a pair of boxers. Tucked in the bottom of the bag is a wad of cash. She doesn’t count it, she already feels guilty, but it seems to be a healthy amount. In the front of the bag, the front zip pocket, are three pill bottles. Mr. George Perkins. The fill date was only three weeks ago.

She returns the pills. She bends down, ready to look under the bed, under his pillow, anywhere. As she’s about to pull back his covers she hears the front door slam.

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