He’d have to look for her the next time they were all flying.And invite her to join them.He was sure she could fly, too, and that would be a rare treat for them as well.Making notes on the things that he wanted to tell Lisa, he was armed with enough information that would keep her safe from the old woman.
~*~
When Brenin came by with the file an hour ago, she didn’t have time to look it over.He did tell her that her rent was going to go up, and not ten minutes after he left, she got the certified mail that told her that it was going to be raised to two hundred dollars a month.That was more than she’d been expecting it to raise.Sitting down with the file now that she had time, she was having a hard time adjusting to the idea that Janice was the one who owned her home and was the person she made her checks out to each month.Then to raise it so much was unheard of.Why was she doing this to her?
Brenin returned with dinner and some photos of his home.He asked her to go see it with him, but not tonight.She had to grade papers and still get ready for working a double shift tomorrow.He seemed to understand, but that didn’t negate the fact that Janice was trying to ruin her.She asked him what he thought was going on.
“She’s trying to make you beholden to her is all I can think about.You told me once that she tried to get you two to move in with her.She’s just making it so you have to now.And with the rent going up, it looks to me like she’s getting desperate for you to do just that.”She said that she could take another job, but that would cut into her time with her son.“I believe she wants that too.To make sure that she’s there to babysit your son.Again, for you to be beholden to her.She doesn’t need the money.She has a great deal of that on her own.Not as much as we all do, but she didn’t need you to continue paying rent to her after her son died.”
“She’s lied to me about so much, I don’t know what to believe from her anymore.I mean, she said that the policy was only for ten grand, and I can see a copy of it right here that says differently.Why would she do that to us?It’s not like we’ve done anything to her.”He said he didn’t know what was in her mind, but was glad he’d been able to find it all.“I am as well.I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this information.”
“I know one solution to your problem.And I’m not rushing you into anything other than to feel better about helping you.You could either move into my house with me, no strings attached, or I can pay your rent for you.It wouldn’t be that big of a hardship on me to make that work for you.”In all honesty, she didn’t know how she was going to make that work in the first place.Even getting a third job was going to be difficult with having Davy.He would be at the sitters’ more than he would be at home.“Anything you make at a third job will be eaten away in putting Davy in daycare of some kind.I could watch over him, too, if you didn’t mind.He’s going to be my son someday, and this would be a way that we could get to know one another.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself just yet.”He smiled and said he was sorry.“Again, no charming me out of things.I have a lot on my mind right now.How could she do this to us?There isn’t any reason at all that I can think of other than what you said about us being beholden to her.Did I tell you that she’s been trying to get us to move in with her?She’s been hinting about it a great deal of late.I just don’t know what to do about this from her.”
She didn’t either.It was as if she were being pulled apart about what she should be doing.Getting a third job wasn’t feasible.Not that it would do her much good.Every cent of it would have to go to paying for a sitter for him because there was no way she was going to ask Janice to do it for her.That would be a disaster just waiting to happen.Davy would hate her, and she’d be stuck in the middle again.
“I can’t make it work in my head about the rent going up.She’s trying to ruin us by jacking it up to this much so that I can’t afford it and go to her either for a loan to get by with or to move in with her.Neither one of those is something that I can live with.Not now, especially.”She looked at Brenin.“If we move in with you, and that’s a big if, if we move in with you, there will be rules that we all have to follow.I will stay with you in a separate bedroom.I don’t know where that might lead down the road,but for now, I must insist on that being the number one rule.The second one is that Davy might have to stay with you, but there are going to be rules for that, too.He can’t go to you for something that I might not want him to do.”
“I would never do that to the two of you.He’s your son, and I understand that.”She asked about the other.“I have an eight-bedroom house.You can both have as much room as you need.I’ve never slept in the master suite, so you can have that.I’ve been bedding down in one of the smaller bedrooms while they were working on the master, and I just got used to it.Davy can have any other room that he wants.”
“Moving out is going to be hard for both of us.Davy has lived here his entire life and knows nothing else.”He said that he could understand that as well.“You’re being too nice to me again.Aren’t you the least bit upset about this?I am.I’m so pissed right now that I want to hunt Janice down and beat her to a pulp.I won’t because that’s not in my nature, but I’m pissed off at her.”
“Might I suggest we have the faeries move you.That way, you can be moved in one load, and she’ll be none the wiser about it until it’s over.”She asked how that would work.“They’re very magical and would be able to move things around in no time at all.Once you’re moved out, you can tell her if you want.But frankly, without you knowing that she’s your landlord, it wouldn’t be any of her business what you do with your home.”
“True.I like the idea of moving out all in one day.It will be hard enough living between two places when the trucks arrive.This will make it so that we don’t have to move all that much either.Not with their help.”She looked around the room they were in.“There isn’t much here that I care to take with me, to be honest.Somehow, it’s all tainted because of what she’s done to make it happen.I mean, you must be pissed too.Your hand is being forced, and that’s something that I can’t get over either.”
They talked about what would go and what would stay.He got with his own faerie to see how difficult it would be for them to move the things out of Davy’s room, and she said it wouldn’t be anything at all.They’d just make things small for them to carry so that they could put them in the new house when they arrive.It sounded too easy to be true, but she believed the little woman.
Her next day off was tomorrow, and while Davy was at school, they were going to move.The faeries were set to help, and she was excited to be able to pull the wool over Janice’s eyes.To think all this time she’d been feeling sorry for the elderly woman, and all along she’d been hurting them financially.And she’d lied to them both about so many things that she wanted to call her out on them, but decided that she was going to let her stew in her own soup for a while.It would be wonderful to have help with Davy and the house payment, but she was more looking forward to having her time with her son while he was still enjoying her being around.
The next morning dawned bright and early.She didn’t tell Davy that they were moving because she was afraid it would get around the school what she was doing.He would be upset for a little while, but once he saw that his room hadn’t changed all that much and he was going to get to ride the bus from now on, he’d think of it as an adventure.She hoped so anyway.She hated to sneak around, but it was the only way that things could work out, so she didn’t have to work so hard.
The move was much easier than she thought it would be.As soon as the pip, she knew what that meant how showed up, they were ready to get to work.Davy’s room was moved with the faeries, and the house was empty in no time.She was going to use some of the furniture in her bedroom to fill out some spaces in the master suite at the new house, and everything in the cabinets was gone before she realized it was time for lunch.They ate it on the way to his home, and she didn’t have to eat a burger either.
“I rarely pick out where I’m going to have a meal.I let Davy decide because we do it so seldom.”Brenin said that he rarely eats at home anymore because it’s so lonely.“I can understand that, too.Sometimes when I’m at home and Davy is at school, I skip meals so that I don’t have to eat alone.It’s not just boring but sort of sad too.”
“Yes, exactly.”He laughed, and she joined him.“The house is a big one.As I told you before, we have staff, so you don’t have to worry about keeping up with it.It’s all done by the faeries that livethere.They have their own room at the house too, I forgot to mention.”She asked him if it was one with lots of lights.“Windows for sure.They seem to like having lots of sunlight, and I find that I don’t care so long as the house is maintained.The first time I realized that they were cleaning up after me, I noticed the windows and the lack of dust.They were sparkling clean, and there were no more dust bunnies around.I’ve gotten spoiled with having them around for all kinds of reasons.That’s just the top two.”
On the way to his house, she was nervous.She’d never seen the house, and now she was going to be living in it with him.Not in the same bed, not yet, but in the same house was a big change for her.Davy would have to get used to it as well.There being another male around might do him some good, too.As soon as she inspected the rooms, she was glad for the master suite as it was close to where Davy was sleeping.Only a couple of doors down from where he was.
Picking up Davy from school, he was excited to see her.Apparently, the teacher had some news on Toby, and she’d shared it with the rest of the class.She did wonder how the little boy was doing, and she was going to look into that when she had time.Her heart broke for the little family when she thought about all that had happened to them.
“We’ve moved.”He asked her where they had moved to.“To the house that Brenin owns.We’re going to be his house guests.”
“Why?Did something happen to our old house?”She said that the rent had gone up again, and they couldn’t afford it without her working more.“I don’t want you to work more, Mom.I miss you so much now.Is Mr.Brenin going to be there all the time?”
“Yes, it’s his house, so he’ll be living there with us.You’ll get to ride the bus when you go to school tomorrow or the next day.We’ll have to call the school and put you on the route.”She knew that he’d be excited about that more than anything and wasn’t disappointed when he yelped for joy.“All the rules still have to work for us, or we’ll have to move out.You understand why, don’t you?”
“Yes, so I don’t have a meltdown when things aren’t right.That only happened the one time, Mom.I’m older now.”Yes, he was older by a whole year now.She told him that the house was going to be taken care of, too.“I won’t leave my toys out where they can get stepped on.Do you suppose that Mr.Brenin will want to play ball with me in the yard?I think that would be cool.Don’t you?”
“Only if you remember that he has a job too and might not have time to play with you.”He sounded so certain when he said he’d make time that she didn’t have the heart to tell him anything different.“You’re taking this move a lot better than I thought you would.Why is that?”
“I thought you were going to tell me that we had to live with Grandma.I don’t like her very much.”She said that wasn’t nice and asked him what she’d done to him.“She wants me to tell her when you do things.”She asked him what sort of things, but they were home now, and he was distracted by the new house.“Look how big it is.”
He ran from room to room, and she let him.It was exciting to be living someplace new, and so she left him explore.But she was going to ask him about what sort of things Janice was having him tell on her about as soon as possible.She had an idea what was going on, but wasn’t sure either that she wanted to know.Things were getting very bad concerning her mother-in-law.
