The Remedy House

“Ally Caldwell, I could’ve sworn I said to stop by my room earlier so I could talk to you,” I heard someone say to my left and glanced up from the vegetables I was cleaning to see Hannah had entered the kitchen, her hands on her hips and a facial expression of frustration on her face. “Oh, I’m sorry I forgot,” I groaned apologetically as I pushed a curl of blonde hair behind my ear, “I had to fix the second floor bathroom again, and then Nell was complaining that her window was stuck-” Hannah stopped me with a laugh before I could list off everything I’d done that day saying, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
I smiled at her then turned to focus on various vegetables that had been picked from the garden left of the house for dinner, all of them gathered in a basket and sitting on the counter next to the sink to be cleaned. As I grabbed a tomato to run it under the water of the facet, Hannah leaned against the counter to my left and gathered up her auburn dyed hair, tying it back in a loose ponytail before she turned back to face the counter and grabbed a kitchen knife to begin chopping up the vegetables I’d already cleaned. She was quiet for a few seconds before finally saying, “So, I noticed we got a new tenant today,” then paused to glance at me with a telling smile.
“Yea…” I answered simply, not taking my eyes off cleaning the last of the tomatoes in the basket until Hannah scoffed at my reply and set the kitchen knife down to put her hands on her hips again. “And?” she asked impatiently, “What’s his name? What is he like?” She groaned slightly when I didn’t answer right away and turned back to continue cutting up the vegetables for dinner, looking back towards me when I finally came up with a response.
“His name’s Rory,” I said then shrugged because, even if I had checked in and showed our new tenant around the house, I hadn’t learned hardly anything about who he actually was. “He doesn’t seem like he’s the friendly type actually…” I confessed, setting a cleaned potato on the counter by Hannah and glancing above our heads to where Rory would be, still in room 3C. “I mean, he’s been in his room all day, Hannah…” I said in a quiet voice after a second, then looked to Hannah with a hint of worry on my face. It had been hours since I’d first shown him to his room, and while people who were new to the Arderly house tended to be shy around the tenants at first, it was unusual to have one who didn’t want anything to do with them at all.
Hannah, having forgotten about cutting the vegetables for the moment, frowned at my words until I turned back to begin washing the few carrots at the bottom of the basket and she followed my lead, focusing once again on cutting up a potato in silence for a few seconds. “Well, I guess he did kind of look like the mysterious type,” She concluded finally in a lighter tone, “But I can’t complain about his personality really, it’s been months since a guy that good looking checked in, right?”
She looked to me for agreement and I shrugged again, not looking up from cleaning the carrots as I answered, “I didn’t really notice.” Hannah scoffed loudly, glancing over at me for a second and laughing before she replied, “Ally you’ve got to be blind if you didn’t notice!” I didn’t say anything back, and instead finished cleaning the vegetables and grabbed a knife to start cutting up what Hannah hadn’t gotten to already. She looked away from me and focused again on cutting up the vegetables in front of her, though after a minute or so spoke once again.
“How old do you think he is anyways, that Rory guy?” She finished cutting up the potato into average sized squares and moved onto another, looking at me as she grabbed for it. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly as I cut up the carrots, “Twenty-five maybe? He didn’t really say… Like I was telling you Hannah, he’s a pretty quiet guy.” I paused and looked over at her, surprised when after a few seconds she hadn’t given any kind of sarcastic reply. Instead she had her eyes cast down and was cutting up the vegetables, a thoughtful expression on her face. At last she finally stopped and looked up answering in a knowing tone, “There’s probably a reason for that…”
“Everyone is quiet when they first get here,” I tried to ration as I finished cutting up the last of the carrots and grabbed a bowl to collect everything in. Since Hannah had first arrived at the Arderly House a little over two years ago, one thing I’d learned was certain about her was that she knew people. She’d been around all types enough to be able to read them with ease, regardless of what they might’ve been through. Her assumption that there was more to Rory’s silence when she was almost always right about a person was discouraging, and I tried to explain it away before I could let myself imagine just how much there was that our new tenant could be hiding.

I walked through the entrance into the dining room from the kitchen, stepping past Murphy the cat as she ran past and set the last plate of food in the center of the oval shaped table before I returned back to the kitchen to grab the stack of plates and silverware. A few of the tenants were already seated at the dining room table in one of the many mix matched chairs surrounding it, waiting for everyone else to arrive so dinner could start. With so many people living in the Arderly House it was difficult to gather everyone for every meal of the day, and for breakfast and lunch whoever wanted food could get simply a plate and eat in the dining or living room. But dinner was special, and my grandmother insisted that everyone in the house eat together as a family, regardless of the fact that we weren’t all related to each other. It had been a custom my grandparents had upheld since they’d began renting out the rooms of their big house in 1977, and was still insisted even with only my grandmother now.
The rest of the tenants all crowded into the small dining room as I finished setting out the plates, all ten of them as well as Gran who sat at the head of the table with a seat saved for me to her right. Once I had set out everything I walked back into the kitchen and took off the old canvas apron I had on over the shirt and skirt I’d been wearing and hung it on a nail near the doorway. I’d only just returned to the dining room and sat down in my seat before Gran looked around the crowded table and said, “Ally, we’ve got a new tenant haven’t we, the man from this morning?”
Everyone at the table looked around in search of an unfamiliar face, and I did the same as I replied, “Yes we do, You mean Rory don’t you?” I looked back at her as she nodded, a concerned expression on her face before she concluded with confused tone, “It looks like he hasn’t come down for dinner…?” I scanned around the room and even behind me at the entrance to the dining room from the kitchen and, just as she had said, Rory was no one to be seen.
“Maybe he didn’t realize it was time for dinner?” Someone speculated from the other side of the table before Gran leaned in towards me a little saying, “Ally would you go and let him know dinner is ready?” I nodded obediently and rose from my seat at the table, walking back though the entrance and though the kitchen, into the hallway, and then up the sets of stairs to the third floor.
Once I reached the top of the stairs I walked a few feet to room 3C towards the left, knocking on the door three times only to hear the familiar sound of silence as a reply. “Mr. Rory,” I called loudly after a few seconds, knocking again when there still wasn’t any kind of answer from inside. “Mr. Rory, dinner is ready,” I continued to call, thinking perhaps he’d answer if he knew the reason I was knocking. When I didn’t hear anything from inside once again, I glanced behind me to the bathroom door a few feet away thinking he could be in there instead, though the door was open and the light was off indicating that it was empty. I turned back to face the door and knocked once again on the door, louder than ever, and called, “Mr. Rory-” before the bedroom door opened suddenly, causing me to jump back in surprise.
Once I’d steadied myself, I looked back up to the open door to find Rory standing partially behind it, looking confused and all but angry at my sudden interruption. I stammered awkwardly, forgetting the reason I’d even come for a few seconds from how intimidating his glare was, before at last announcing timidly, “Dinner is ready, Mr. Rory…” looking strait ahead of me at his chest as a spoke rather than up to meet his eyes, feeling almost ashamed of having knocked to loudly and disturbed him.
“I’m not hungry,” he answered immediately with a cold and harsh tone, then took a step back into the bedroom and began closing the door, intending to slam it shut and lock it just as he’d done earlier when I’d first showed him to his room. “W-wait,” I said loudly, squeezing my eyes closed and pushing my hands out until I felt the wood of the door hit my palms, and I forced it from closing shut. “Um, please come and eat, everyone is downstairs waiting,” I pleaded as I pushed against the closing door to keep it open, pausing only once he’d stopped trying to close it and opened the door a few inches more to glare at me even stronger than he had before.
“They all want to meet you, and they’re all very kind, really!” I continued to beg, taking advantage of his pause to see if maybe I could persuade him and change his mind about joining us, “Gran always says how important it is to all eat together, so please come eat.” He stood silently for a few seconds with the door halfway open and I slowly took my hands back and put my arms at my sides, feeling stupid after having pushed against it so desperately so that I could plead with him to come and join everyone for dinner.
Finally, he shifted and his dark eyes met mine again before he answered in a voice just as cold as before, “No thanks,” then slammed the door shut, locking it immediately afterwards and leaving me alone in front of his room once again. I stood in my place for a few seconds, staring at the door and the rusting gold ‘C3’ nailed in the center of the peeling white paint, before finally turning around with a defeated feeling and returning back down the stairs and to the dining room.
By the time I returned to the dining room through the kitchen entrance dinner had just began, and everyone was either filling their plates with the food or passing the various bowls or platters around the table. Some of the tenants looked up as I entered expecting to see the new tenant and I, still discouraged by Rory’s refusal to come down and join us, was slow to realize they were expecting an explanation, stuttering for a second before at last saying, “He, um, he said he wasn’t hungry…”
The conversations shifted to Rory as I took my seat back at the table next to Gran as she said in a troubled tone, “Oh, aright then…” concerned about him as she took the plate from Nell sitting on her other side and passed it to me. I accepted it with a smile and filled the plate on the table in front of me with some of everything that had been prepared, listening to all the talking around me as I did.
“You’d think he’d be hungry after being in his room all day,” someone commented down the table once everyone had began to eat, followed by Audrey, a woman in her late twenties with a young daughter sitting left of her, asking from down the table where he was from. “He mentioned that he was from the States, actually…” I answered back, lying slightly that he’d willingly told me where he was from when in reality I’d just happen to notice his accent.
“He’s from the U.S. like us, Mom,” Mason, the young boy that’d been running up the stairs earlier told Kristine, sitting directly across from me, with an excited tone to which she answered in a quiet but polite voice, “I know, I heard.” The table continued to talk about Rory as everyone ate, until eventually the subject gradually changed and before long we were discussing the ordinary topics like usual, as if there wasn’t even a new tenant upstairs who’d refused to join us for dinner.

After dinner was finished people began to leave the dining room, some going up to their rooms and some into the living room on the other side of the house to watch television, while a few stayed behind to clean up the kitchen. Audrey, the woman who’d asked about where Rory was from earlier, gathered up of the plates, glasses, and silverware from the dining room, bringing them to me where I had filled the sink with warm water to wash them.
“There’s actually some leftovers tonight,” Kristine said with a small laugh as she set a large plate with a small amount of leftover food on it down on the counter next to me on my left. I watched as she reached above her and opened one of the old white cabinets, pulling out a plastic container to store the leftovers in to eat later. “That’s unusual with so many people,” She commented as she filled the container with the leftover food from the dish and then pushed the empty plate towards me to wash, walking behind me and to the other side of the kitchen to put the container in the small, white fridge.
“I’m going to bed, Ally,” She announced once she had closed the door to the fridge, yawning into her hand as she walked back across the kitchen and through the entrance, into the hallway, and up to her room in the second floor where Sydney and Mason were already at getting ready for sleep. I said goodnight to her, and soon Audrey was finished bringing in the dishes and went to collect her daughter from the living room and go to her own room on the second floor, leaving me the only one left in the kitchen to clean up.
I worked quickly to wash all of the dishes and put them back in the cabinets or drawers, as it was already getting late and I was eager to return to my own room for bed after such a long day. By the time everything had been washed, dried, and put back in its proper place, all of the other tenants in the living room had all gone upstairs to their rooms and I was alone on the first floor. After pulling the stopper from the sink to let the water drain, I removed the apron I’d put on the clean and once again hung it back on the hook, glancing over at the fridge and thinking of the container of leftovers from dinner. After glancing over my shoulder at the hallway entrance to find no one there, I walked towards the fridge and opened the door, pulled out the container then left the kitchen, flipping the light off and making the climb towards my room on the third floor.
Since everyone had already gone to their rooms to sleep the house was dark except for the white moonlight that filtered in through the old windows and provided just enough light to see. I reached the third floor, enveloped in the same darkness as the rest of the house, and, with the container of food in my hands, walked carefully towards room 3C. I stood in front of the old wooden door for a second, my eyes running over the golden ‘3C’ again before I finally let out a small sigh and kneeled down, setting the container on the hardwood floor in front of the door.
I stood back up and knocked on the door lightly three times, then stepped away and walked left down the small hallway and towards my own room, ready for sleep after such an exhausting day. I wasn’t confident that Rory would even answer the knock on his door to find the food, and was anticipating a reaction similar to earlier when I’d invited him for dinner, but despite that I couldn’t suppress my surprise when I left my room the next morning to find the container I’d left, empty and set out to the right of the door waiting to be collected.