What Lies Beneath

Chapter Ten

Chapter 10

I leave right before her family gets home so there's no need for any questions. When I get home, I look through the front window and see around the corner James and Janet sitting on the sofa together. Janet glances at me without making it a big deal, and I hear her say, "Alright James, I'm done for tonight. If you need anything else I will be right next door."

"Where's David?"

"He isn't coming home tonight, he should be back tomorrow though."

"Oh, ok," he answers confused.

"Do you need any help going to bed?" she asks.

"I don't need any help!" he belts.

She responds level headed, "Alright, have a good night then." She comes outside and meets me in the driveway.

"Follow me," she whisper, and we go to a small house off the side of the yard. This is the first time I had ever seen her house before. It is simple, very original. The outside walls are a deep rosewood and the structure is very simple, a circle. The shingles are a dark brown, almost black against the dark sky. There are a few windows scattered around the walls and a simple wooden front porch leads up to the glass door. The most extravagant detail about this house that takes my breath away is the tree in the small front yard. It has to be three times taller than the cottage itself but about the same circumference. Its branches seem to spread by the thousands from the thin trunk and the leaves, my goodness the leaves are everywhere. The green is so extravagant you can tell the beauty of it even in the darkness.

"Beautiful," I whisper to no one in particular.

Janet looks around and finds my gaze locked on the tree, as if seeing it for the first time.

"Oh, yes beautiful," she responds thoughtlessly.

We walk into her house and the inside is very simple yet open. You can see every room no matter where you are, but something about the aura it gives out makes it feel more humane than James's expensive house.

"When did you get this?"

She hesitates and she speaks as if I interrupted her thoughts, "Um, when I made the decision to aid James from his home rather than the hospital, I had a contractor come in and make something small just for me to stay in when I work."

"You don't actually live here?"

Her voice is cautious, not wanting to give away too much. "No, I live with my husband much further away, but he travels a lot so he's alright with me living out here for a while."

"Oh I didn't realize you were married."

"Yeah," she responds ghostly.

I sit down on the couch to the left of the front door and gaze at the bed in the center of the room, the kitchen in the far right corner and the rest room to the left, obviously boarded off. There's no television and only plumbing for the sink and the toilet.

"Janet, is everything alright?"

She sits down on her bedside and stares into thought at the rug. "He's losing it, day by day."

I sit in silence and let that sink in and realize, just maybe, this is something more serious than what I first thought of it.

Something makes her snap out of her trance and she sees me for the first time. "Matthew! How was your day at school? Did you learn anything?" I can tell by her eyes that there is something more she is not telling me but that will have to come with time.

"Oh come on Janet, it's school, the same thing every day! But I did meet someone,"

She stopped in her tracks and her eyes went really wide, "A girl?"