Don't Worry, I'll Keep You Warm

Sometimes, you’ll hear your own name being shouted over your shoulder, or at least, you thought you did. It was just loud enough to get your attention, but just quiet enough so that you realize you must just be hearing things. You brush it off, turning back to whatever it was you were doing before you heard the thing.

I get that feeling a lot. Like someone is trying to yell to me, but I can’t hear them properly. so I realize it’s just the voices in my head, and so I manage to shut them off. Usually its a voice I don’t recognize, too. Nothing more than my imagination…

——

He rang the door bell very carefully. The house was kind of big, but not too fancy. Still bigger than his own though. Taking a step back, he couldn’t help but notice the dust on the window of the front door, and suddenly he was a little nervous about what he might find on the inside.

“I could still run…” he whispered to himself. Hell, he didn’t even want this job - but he needed it. His last chance to turn tail and run to his parents, telling him that he’d changed his mind left as the door slowly opened.

A rather homely looking woman looked at him through sorrowful eyes. “Hello, you must be Vic?” she said, offering him one of the saddest smiles he’d ever seen.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, giving the middle-aged woman a stiff nod.

She smiled again and moved aside, allowing him inside of her house. It wasn’t as bad as Vic was imagining it would be; just very dusty. The rug needed to be vacuumed. All the windows needed to be washed. The couches weren’t bad, but he was willing to bet that would be one of his tasks.

“I managed to get all of the things you would need gathered up in the kitchen - its through that door over there. Two hours today is fine and once that’s done just come find me and we’ll discuss the next time you can come in and work,” she explained.

“Uh, okay,” said Vic, starting towards the kitchen that she had pointed out. She followed closely behind.

“For today I would like it if you washed all the windows, then got to the dusting. Stay on the downstairs floor for now.”

Vic nodded again, reaching for a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels she left on the table for him. “Alright, I’ll leave you alone then,” said his new boss, turning to go wherever.

“Thank you, Mrs. Quinn,” Vic called after her. She looked over her shoulder and gave him that same sad smile as before as he turned to go back in to the living room. Goal number one was to get the window of the door clean.

He sighed; maybe working for his neighbors wouldn’t be too bad after all. She seemed nice enough. He had yet to meet her husband though. He could be completely different.

The window wasn’t too hard to wash. It really was all just random dust and dirt, so it didn’t take long for him to move on to the others that were in the room, going one by one until he was moving back in to the kitchen to wash all of those and the large sliding glass door. Out in the back they had a pool and although it was Summer, it hadn’t even been opened. That was just strange; it got hot around here in these months. Were they really this lazy?

Shaking his head and not voicing his judgements, he kept about his work, taking his time but going at a good pace. He was iffy about going off in to other rooms. Mrs. Quinn didn’t exactly make him feel welcome; but he had to do what he had to do. When he got to the bathroom, he noted that this would probably end up being one of his jobs as well. At least it wasn’t too bad. He wiped down the single window in the small downstairs bathroom and did the large mirror while he was at it.

“Damn,” he muttered, looking at all of the dust on the counter and by the lights. How do you lose such basic motivation to keep your house relatively clean? His own mother kept their house spotless at all times.

It took him nearly an hour to get all of the windows in the downstairs area clean - from the living room, so some sitting room area, the kitchen, the bathroom, the kitchen, everything - and he was getting back to the kitchen to get a rag and some sort of anti-dust cleaner.

He whistled a tune as he went back to start in the living room once more. They had a few book cases that contained pictures and other little knick-knacks as well as books, and that was the first thing Vic went for. He took each thing down and wiped it clean, then left it on the floor so he could wipe the shelves down before putting them back.

One thing, however, made him stopped. A picture frame that didn’t contain Mrs. Quinn or her husband - but a teenager. It had to have been a school photo - it had that tell-tale background and that forced smile. As far as he knew, the Quinn’s didn’t have any kids. Vic and his family had lived there for about a year now and they rarely had any visitors. Hell, they rarely ever left the house except for when Mr. Quinn went to work in the morning.

Still, the teenager looked like he was about Vic’s age. He was pale, and had a shock of messily styled dark hair. His eyes stuck out. He was gorgeous. Vic cleaned it with care and set it down, and when he turned his attention back to the rest of the shelves, he noticed there were other picture frames he didn’t see when he first walked in. The thing was, these ones were turned so that they were face down.

Gingerly, Vic picked them up and was surprised to see the same teenage face staring back at him, only this wasn’t a school photo. He was posing with Mrs. Quinn, kissing her on the cheek. Nephew, maybe? He shrugged and did the same, wiping it down and placing it next to the other.

Each of the turned down picture frames contained that same face. Some were baby pictures; Vic only knew it was the same person by the eyes. The same happened on the other book case as well. Should he ask? He didn’t know; they were obviously facing away for a reason.

“That’s my son.”

Vic nearly jumped out of his skin; he didn’t notice Mrs. Quinn sneaking up behind him. Where the fuck had she come from? “Uh, oh. Yeah, I was wondering who this was…” he managed to choke out.

She nodded her head, taking the picture he was holding out of his hands and staring longingly at it. “His name is Kellin,” she told him.

“Kellin…” Vic repeated. “Is he…?” He was going to say ‘around’ or some other way of gently putting ‘did he die or something’, but he didn’t have to.

Mrs. Quinn smiled sadly again and dropped her eyes to the photo. “He’s in a coma. Has been for two years now.”

“Oh,” said Vic. “I’m so sorry… do you mind if I ask what happened?” Did he even really want to know? Could you even be put in a coma for that long?

“It’s fine. When he was a freshmen, he was hit by a car while walking home from school. There was some trauma to his brain and he just… won’t wake up.”

“I’m sorry,” said Vic, trying to give her the most sympathetic look he could muster. Two years would explain why he had never seen him around here. The older woman nodded her head and placed the photo next to the others, and walked away without a word.

Well, this certainly explained a lot…