garments, Daniel returned to the basement to join his family in the newly positioned bed. Rebecca had obviously won the last debate about where she would sleep, her bed remained upstairs inside the pink bedroom. Corinne and Rebecca were both definitely in higher spirits now, and they were laughing heartily as they got into bed, feeling both full and clean. Daniel crawled into the bed, in only his underwear, giddy that he was feeling cold.
“Thank you, Baby. It wasn’t quite as hot as I like, but it still felt pretty amazing!” Corinne said, reaching over Rebecca to rub his shoulder. “I put the rest of the spaghetti, which was great by the way, in a bowl, and put it in the hole…You can totally tell that the water will get even warmer. Ya know? Maybe if it gets to sit in the sun for a couple days. I hope so,” she said wistfully, withdrawing her hand. “The clothes seemed pretty clean, too. That’s what took us so long, I did mine and Rebecca’s. But I couldn’t twist them enough to get most of the water out. Is there any way you could make me something to help squeeze or wring them out? Of course, it didn’t help having this one hogging the whole tub,” Corinne said with a partial grin.
“I’ll try to think up something for you tomorrow,” Daniel said, smiling his promise to her.
“That was super fun! Can I take another bath tomorrow?” Rebecca asked, scooting up further on her pillow to get eye to eye with her father.
“As long as it starts raining again soon. The barometer says that the pressure is falling and the humidity is rising. So, it might rain tomorrow or the next day. If it does, you and Mommy can take one almost every day,” he beamed, trying to prolong their admiration of his cleverness. “Tell you what, we’ll give her a little break and, soon, you can take a bath with me. That sound like a deal?”
After one of the better days had in a long while, despite all the added stresses, the Moore family snuggled together atop the mattress, which was now lying on the cool floor of the dark basement. Within minutes, every member had fallen into a deep and contented sleep.
Chapter 6
Tuesday
Good to his word, George had kept either Jimmy or Chase watching over the man’s house. The boy’s view of the house was through the obscuring properties of the second-story window’s dirty glass. They sat ten feet away from the window and off to the right hand side. Only the thinnest of glimpses could be seen of an old burnt house out of the window to the left. The remnants of the house were like an open sore just beginning its healing process, leveling ever closer to the world’s plane mark with each new garbage bag or tree limb that got tossed in.
The three boys would never dare to wipe a viewing port into the greasy glass, things like that would eventually be noticed. The brother’s backs were aching from all the time that they were spending sitting atop the sharp backs of the metal chairs, using the uncomfortable perches to have the right downward viewing angle. It hurt sitting atop the chair for hours on end, even with two balled up shirts underneath.
Jimmy caught himself drifting away, thoughts leading him far away from where he was. Arousing only found that he was staring out of the same damn window again.
On the first day of forced voyeurism, the man could be seen systematically boarding up his windows. Every window that could be seen on the house was secured, the only exception being the large glass sliding door in back, which the man kept using to go in and out of. It was like the man knew they planned on trying to break in. At one point George had pretty much given up altogether on breaking into the house. The man had not left the area and he seemed to be preparing for an impending assault. But as they watched the second day saw the man’s behavior go from slightly weird in the morning to just plain strange before nightfall.
George made sure that Jimmy got up early each morning. He needed to be certain that the man did not leave without them knowing about it. After a couple of boring, yawn-laced hours, the man came outside in late morning to gather more lumber from the side of the house. Jimmy