Autumn in Philadelphia Trilogy

The Return: The Boogeyman Cometh

"Is it useful to feel fear, because it prepares you for nasty events, or is it useless, because nasty events will occur whether you are frightened or not?"

- Lemony Snicket

Julia was awake. Shawn could hear the water running in the shower. Ordinarily, he enjoyed hassling her about the bathroom and looked forward to it. It exemplified the normalcy he craved as a child. He'd always wanted siblings who behaved like siblings were supposed to. Not like Stacy who ran off and never contacted her little brother again. Or Eddie who was an abusive felon. Or...

He didn't think Jack deserved to be put in the same category as their other half-siblings, most of whom they'd never met. Jack tried to have a relationship with him at least. And it wasn't entirely Jack's fault that they no longer spoke.

He sighed, rolled onto his side, and swung his feet over the edge of the bed. As he sat up, he caught a glimpse of something under the bed.

A sock. With foot in it. Shawn lifted the comforter's edge and peered under the bed. It was Jamie fast asleep with his head resting on a wadded-up hoodie and clutching a comic book in his hand. Gently, Shawn pulled him out from under the bed and picked him up. The boy stirred and sleepily blinked at him.

"You know next time you can sleep on the bottom bunk," he told the boy.

"I didn't want Uncle Cory to be mad."

He smiled as he thought about Cory's extreme reaction to Auggie wanting to share the bed with him. "It's not Uncle Cory's room."

"It is his bed."

Shawn laughed. He stooped to pick up the comic book that had fallen from the boy's hand. A warm feeling of nostalgia washed over him when he saw the vintage X-Men comic from the early 90s.

"Dad's still teachin' this story, huh?"

Jamie didn't answer. He'd fallen back to sleep.

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Jon was in the kitchen when Shawn made it downstairs. He stood quietly in the doorway and watched his mentor go through his morning routine. A strange feeling of intense affection coupled with wistfulness came over him. He recalled when he first went to live with Jon and how uncertain he was of everything and how convinced he was that he'd be out on the street in no time because his teacher didn't want kids of his own at the time. Eventually, he learned that he and Jon were very similar and ultimately, with Audrey's help, developed a strong relationship.

Now he understood that those similarities went much deeper that he knew then. Both had been adrift at the same point in their lives without blood family to turn to. Both had troubled teen years. With the help of Audrey's father, Jon, whatever trouble he'd been in, got out of it and turned around to offer to him the same helping hand and home when he needed it the most.

"Hunter, you keep headin' down this life track you're on, then the places you're goin' aren't any places you're gonna wanna be, man."

"Yeah, I know. I've been there. Someone reaches out to you and says they care about you, it's easy to run."

Jon's words from the past reverberated in his head as they so often did. There was a moment when he first moved in after getting caught sneaking out, that his teacher grabbed him by the back of the neck and got nose to nose with him.

"I've been where you're headed, Shawn. If you think Imma just stand by and watch that happen, you're dead wrong."

As a teen, he thought Jon was bluffing. As an adult he knew he hadn't been.