Emilie Richards - The Color Of Light

Shiloh didn’t smile. She didn’t even look happy. She just shrugged. “We’ll see.”

* * *

The expansive third floor of the parish house was for the most part used for storage, although much of the space was empty. The apartment that Felipe and his family had inhabited had been carved out of it more than half a century ago as a way to save the church money. If the Church of the Covenant could offer housing as part of their employment package, that saved on salary.

After several years Felipe had balked and given notice so he could look for a job that didn’t include housing. With his children growing older the family needed a larger, homier place to live. The personnel committee had quickly offered a new deal, salary only, and the apartment had been vacant ever since.

In the intervening months discussions had ensued about what to do with the third floor. With Covenant Academy at their disposal on Sunday mornings, there was no need for more classrooms. The staff didn’t need storage; they needed to get rid of useless supplies and outdated equipment. The apartment needed rehabilitation before it could be used as a rental, and the location made rentals difficult anyway. Nothing had been decided.

With Ethan following her, Analiese preceded the Fowlers, who were taking down the tent. She unlocked the apartment door with one of her many keys and saw there was serious work to be done. “I didn’t think about the dust.”

“We can do a quick once-over,” he said. “It’s easy enough to wipe down surfaces and sweep the floor. The good news is that it’s not freezing up here.”

Heat had risen from the rooms downstairs, and she was guessing the temperature in the apartment was at least sixty. She crossed the living room and found the thermostat in the hallway beyond it. Sixty exactly. She turned the dial to seventy-two and heard the reassuring thump of the wall furnace in the living room.

“I can see why your sexton relocated,” Ethan said from the living room. “When was the last time anything was done to this place?”

“The usual repairs and inspections, but nothing more.” She peeked into each of the two small bedrooms on the other side of the hallway and was reassured to find beds, two singles in one, a double in the other, although the dressers were gone. There was also a sagging sofa and a chair in the living room, and a small round table with mismatched chairs in one corner for dining. None of this had been good enough to take along when Felipe and family moved.

“I’m turning on the refrigerator,” Ethan said. Then, after a pause, he said, “It’s clean enough inside, and it seems to be working.”

Analiese found an old towel under the bathroom sink and wet it down. Back in the living room she wiped the dust off the table and chairs. Ethan had already found a broom and was sweeping cobwebs into a pile.

The space was small, but over the years attempts had been made to maximize storage. A pantry off the kitchen held a variety of shelves. Beside that a cubbyhole had been carved out for a stacked washer and dryer that had also been left behind. Wide wall shelves had been installed to the left of where a television had been. Shelves had been added in each of the bedrooms, too, and after the table was clean and she’d rinsed her towel, she started on those in the living room.

Ethan had left the door into the apartment open, but there was a timid knock, and Analiese paused to greet Man, who was poised on the threshold, a sleeping bag under each arm.

“Come in, and welcome.” She smiled at him and pointed. “The bedrooms are through there.”

Man looked as if he wanted to say something, but Shiloh came up behind him with two more sleeping bags. “Mom needs help getting up the stairs, Daddy.”

Ethan emptied his dustpan into the kitchen garbage pail. “Ana, do you know where the hot water heater’s located?” She gave her best guess, and he followed Man out of the apartment to search for it.

“You don’t have to clean. We can do that,” Shiloh said.

“I wasn’t kidding when I said this apartment hasn’t been used in a long time. You don’t deserve to breathe in our dust. We’ll get the worst out quickly.”

“This has just been sitting here? With nobody living in it?”

Analiese heard everything behind the girl’s question. How unfair it was that Shiloh’s own family had been sleeping in a car—or so Analiese assumed—while this apartment stood empty. How magnificent the simple, dusty space seemed after having no place to go. How people weren’t even remotely created equal, no matter what the Declaration of Independence proclaimed.

She kept her answer brief. “A family lived here, but they moved into a house not too long ago.”

“It’s big.”

Analiese considered that. Big in the eye of this beholder. “You’ll be comfortable enough. Tomorrow we’ll talk about what you can do next.”

“I don’t want to think about that right now.”

Analiese understood. Shiloh wanted to enjoy the luxury of a private apartment while she could. “I didn’t have time to wipe down the bathrooms, so you’ll need to check, and maybe rinse out the sink and tub before you use them. Ethan will make sure the hot water heater is on, but you might need to wait twenty minutes or so to take showers.”

“We can use the shower?”

Analiese kept her voice light, although that was a struggle. “Use anything you find in here. It’s yours for the night.”

“We’ll take care of it.”

Analiese faced her. “I know you will.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I think you’re good people who’ve fallen on hard times. But that doesn’t change who you are.”

“We had our own house. In Ohio. We had a vegetable garden and a dog, and Dougie and I both had our own rooms. Then the auto parts factory where Daddy always worked closed down.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine how difficult this has been for all of you. How long have you been on the road?”

“We went to South Carolina where my aunt lives. She’s my mother’s sister. We stayed with her for...” She appeared to be counting in her head. “Eleven months. Maybe even a year. We’ve been on our own for maybe six months.”

“You’ve been on the road that long?”

“For a while we stayed outside Atlanta in an old camper. Daddy got a job packing boxes, but it was temporary, so we moved on.”

“Why did you come here? Do you have family nearby?”

“We heard there might be jobs. Maybe some kind of construction for Daddy, or working in a restaurant.”

Even in a town like Asheville, where visitors and residents seemed to make a point of being individual, Man would stand out, and not in a good way. Piercings and tattoos, ragged jeans or hipster hoodies, were one thing, but at first glance Man seemed to be someone whose last hope had ended, and whose energy had drained away with it. He looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and burrow deeper, and nobody would see that as an asset.

Analiese didn’t want to tell the girl that local construction had slowed until the economy could rebound, and that any service position Man would be able to get would not pay enough to support the family. As a matter of fact she wouldn’t be surprised if Shiloh had already figured that out.

She switched subjects. “It must have been hard for you and Dougie to go to school.”

Shiloh shrugged, and Analiese knew she had been right. She wondered when they had last seen the inside of a classroom.

Ethan came back. “It’s a good-sized heater, probably fifty gallons, and it looks fairly new. The water should get hot quickly.”

Shiloh scooted past him. “I’ve got to get more stuff.”

There was coughing from the stairwell, and in a moment Man returned, one arm around a pale and perspiring Belle. He led her to the sofa, and she collapsed, leaning forward with her hands on her knees.