Clement shivered. Rain fell heavy, filling the runnels on either side of the bridge’s supports. He surveyed his home in the dim light of the evening, reaching, feeling for the tent, his clothes and sleeping bag. His neighbors had left, fearing the predictions: the river would soon crawl up the bank and sweep everything to the bay. He looked up at the underside of a steel beam, an arm’s length from his head. The river spoke in a rush at his feet. He must leave his carved-out dirt space of a home.

When she opened the door to the basement, Molly felt like God had whispered his return. Looking down the stairs between walls of open studs, she saw the concrete floor splashed with light. She held the rail, scanning the floor as she descended into the basement. The air was damp and cool. The curtain over the sliding-glass door was pulled open. Turning to the rear of the small basement, she peered into the shadows and whispered.

“Taylor?”

A bed, desk, and chair sat in the shadows. Molly reached for the light switch, wondering. Two bare-bulb lights came on, one for each side of the basement straddling the stairs. The bed, stripped of its clothing, stood as it had eight years past. Her eyes moved across the far wall of wooden studs. She turned and walked toward the door, seeing the wet morning grass beyond, then turned to the near corner.

Out of the sun’s direct light sat a man in a cushioned chair next to a lamp that illuminated his lap and the side of his face. He smiled and closed the book he was reading, marking his place with his thumb.

Molly’s whole body quivered as she looked at the man getting up from the chair. Taylor? He needed a shave and wore a shirt with ripped breast pocket and dirty shorts. She tried to call for her husband but found she had no voice. Warm air fell from her mouth as she stared at the man, searching his face for that which was past. She shook her head, watching the man stand, as a soldier, she thought, at rest, but with his hands in front holding the book. His head had a slight tilt, his eyes steady on her. Handsome, she whispered in silence.

“I don’t mean to frighten. It was rainin’ last night, and I saw your door was open.” He glanced at the door. “Not open, but… not locked.”

Molly’s thoughts flitted from one dangerous scenario to another. Her heart shook, yet she steeled herself and took a step forward. Propelled by some energy she could not define. She moved toward the man and looked into his eyes. He had a kind face, she decided. Was young, about the age of her son. But he wasn’t her son.

“You know it’s illegal to break into a person’s house.”

The man moved his thumb to the side, allowing the book to close, still holding it with both hands. He nodded.

“I do. But I was wetter’n a drowned dog and…” He looked to the door. “Your house invited me in.”

She heard a regional twang. It wasn’t deep south or of the hills. Somewhere… His eyes shone through the timid light. She smiled. “What book are you reading?”

The man brought the book up. “The Last Temptation of Christ,” he said, and offered it to Molly.

“My son’s,” she said, motioning with her head to the bookcase and stacks of boxes against the side wall. “I haven’t had time to get rid of them.” His shirt pocket held her eyes. Torn half down one side and folded over in a triangle, it had the look of a pitiful pocket square. “He used to live down here. It was cooler than his room upstairs.”

She walked to a lean of fold-up chairs next to the boxed books and a bicycle. Beyond was a tub of toys. A basement of lost memories. Pulling a chair close, she motioned for him to sit. She wanted to know about the man, his background, how he came to be in this small town she had lived in the past twenty-six years. She wanted to know why he was homeless, how he selected her house to crash in, how he afforded to feed himself and where he slept. Did he have a family? Where did he work? She wanted to know all this, but didn’t ask.

“My son used to live down here,” she said, sitting next to the cushioned reading chair at an angle. She spoke into his ear as if she were in a confessional.

The man listened, the book in his lap, his thumb rubbing the pages in studied silence.

“Taylor said he needed to be in a quiet place. That was when he was in high school. As a small child, he was always very cheery, but later, in school, he was a troubled soul.” She went on with her story, explaining the benefits her son derived from the basement. “He only needed this chair and lamp. And the bed and desk over there.”

The man listened, nodding, his thumb brushing the pages.

Molly smiled. “And now he has his own place. No basement, just a small apartment, but it suits him.”

The man’s face needed a shave. The book he cradled hid his palms, but she saw the backs of his hands, the muscles of his forearms, feathered with hair. Or was it dirt? She wasn’t sure in the half light. Hands of a working man, she figured. Not real educated by his speech, or lack of it. Yet, he was reading a book.

“We have a bathroom down here,” she said, pointing behind her to the center of the room behind the stairs where a toilet and sink sat surrounded by open studs. And she saw in his eyes and the nod of his head that her information was not needed.

“My name is Molly.” She smiled, amazed at how comfortable she felt in her basement talking to a man who had no business being in her house. Homeless.

Of course, she knew he was. Why else would he be in her home? And the state of his clothes and the dirt on his sandals made it clear he had no place of his own.

She asked his name. Clement.

Molly gave him a wide-ranging tour of her life, beginning with her growing up in a small town in Ohio to current day where her husband sold tires and she sold flowers at the only florist in town.

“That’s how we came to have those two tires in the front yard planted with daisies. It was my idea,” she said. Clement saw pride in her cheeks. Molly saw quiet sadness in his. “I’ve always loved flowers.” She waited for a reply.

Clement held the book and said, “I didn’t see the tires. It was dark and raining.”

“You’re homeless, aren’t you?”

“Homeless sounds too permanent,” he said. “I prefer waitin’ for a home to come available.”

“Oh.”

He glanced at the worn and ripped arm of the chair and placed the book over it. He felt comfortable sitting in this chair. “Tell me more about your son.”

She raised a hand and brushed back her auburn hair. “He was a quiet boy with few friends. When he graduated from high school, he left and went to Colorado.” She turned to the bright patch of light on the floor.

“I take it he liked to read,” Clement said.

She nodded, searching for a silhouette to break the light, and heard a voice call from upstairs.

Molly whispered, “My husband, Darren.”

“You down there, Molly?”

“Yes. We have a visitor.” She turned toward the landing.

“A what?”

“Clement. He got caught in the storm last night and found our door open.”

“Just walked in?” Darren remained at the top of the stairs.

“Yessir,” Clement called.

There was silence.

Darren said, “I’m leaving for work. Get rid of him, Molly.” The door closed.

Molly decided just then, as her eyes swept over Clement, she was talking with a friend. Even if he wasn’t homeless, he would be waiting a lifetime to move into a home of his own. The sole of his left sandal was loose. Loose soles were always a problem, she thought. They flap when you walk.

“You could trip,” she said, pointing to his shoe. “Have you had breakfast?”

She brought him a three-egg omelet with sausages. They sat in the corner and talked about the challenges of selling flowers to people who only wanted them for special occasions, not to enjoy them for their beauty. And the art of arranging flowers. Clement ate and nodded at the right times and asked a question when the easy movement of the conversation slowed. Like dropping your foot from the platform of a skateboard and giving the thing a boost. A question now and then in a conversation is like a tiny force that propels it along. From one flower to the next, one tire to the next, one son to his flight from home.

“He loved to read,” she said. “He was a troubled boy. Forever bullied in school and...” She paused, seeming to consider her words. “I hope he’s happy now. I worry.”

Clement nodded.

Molly talked until she said she had to go to work. She made a sandwich for the man in the basement and told him she would be back by five. She climbed the stairs. Clement heard her close and lock the door.

Molly bought him clothes from the thrift store. Clement lay on the bed in his new shorts, shirt. He listened to the two inhabitants of the upper floors talk. They began at dinner sedately. He heard them discuss the benefits of snow tires and the meaning of the tread wear rating, the difference between a compote design and a composite and that a nosegay has nothing to do with one’s nose or its ability to flag whether its owner might be gay. These indistinct murmurs increased in volume with Darren hurling insults at his employees and customers as Molly jabbed at her husband for being a fool. Watching television after dinner for several hours, conversation almost ceased. Later at night, on the upper floor, the two seemed to continue to discuss the crumbling of American culture. Racial and ethnic slurs bounced off the walls. Clement strained to hear them at this level. It was as if their anger and hate were hierarchical, moving from the personal to the general as they ascended the stairs.

“Absurd,” Clement muttered days later, walking past the drywall tape on the floor to Taylor’s bookcase. He wondered if Taylor, the boy no longer in the basement, had heard these encounters between his parents. And what would he think of a stranger taking his place? What was he doing in Colorado and who might he be with? Molly’s stories of her son when he was growing up left much to ponder and much to fill in.

Clement sat in the reading chair and opened a new book. The lamp threw a cone of amber light across his lap and onto the floor. He crossed his leg, and reached for his knee, brushing white dust to the floor, and read. But soon stopped and looked up at the room in progress. Darren hadn’t wanted him to stay in the basement, wanted him gone. Molly argued on his behalf. A week after Clement’s arrival, the three of them stood in the side yard, just beyond the basement door. Clement suggested he could finish the basement if he could stay. Darren fixed his eyes on the man, then glanced at his wife.

Clement said, “You know, with a finished basement, your house will be worth a lot more.”

Molly listened to his words, the longest sentence she’d heard him say. And barely a hint of the twang.

“You got the skills?” Darren said.

“Yeah. I was a Carpentry and Masonry Specialist in the army.”

“The army.” Darren’s faced betrayed his skepticism. He watched Clement’s eyes. “No drinking. No smoking. Understand?”

Clement nodded.

Darren stared, then turned to Molly. “I want daily progress reports.”

She said, “I can do that,” and saluted Darren.

He frowned and walked off.

A week later, when Molly brought Clement’s dinner to the basement—his meals were part of the deal—Clement learned Darren hadn’t been in the basement for over ten years, since before Taylor moved away.

Clement cocked his head. “For two years, Darren never saw Taylor?”

“Oh, they’d see each other when Taylor left for school sometimes. Taylor would give his father the finger. Darren would jump at him and glare and Taylor would run for the basement door.”

“Darren’s got a temper,” Clement said.

She bowed her head. “Yeah.”

“And he refuses to come down because it might remind him of Taylor?”

“Well…” She tilted her head as if examining a spot on the floor.

“Because he’s gay,” Clement said.

She gave him a hard glare. “He’s not. Darren’s wrong. He’s just mixed up. Taylor’s… mixed up.”

Clement wanted to say, “Maybe you and Darren are mixed up.” He sat back, placing his fork and knife at a diagonal on the plate.

Molly was finished talking about Taylor. She took his plate and glass and said, “Meet me in the back yard.”

Molly and Clement stood at the rear of the house, where the grass met a line of trees growing along a canal path. The old canal was no longer in use, but the path that ran into town provided a respite from the hurried lives of joggers and bikers who used it. The homes that backed up to this area had to deal with reaching vines and weed-encrusted bushes that threatened to overtake their yards. Birds and other creatures camped in this chaos of plants. Occasional beer bottles and fast-food wrappers showed up, ignoring signs to the contrary.

“An eyesore,” she said. “A jungle, not like my garden of flowers in front. It needs to be cut back, cleaned up. It will be a change of pace from your basement work.”

Clement sighted down the rear property line, peering through the trees and bushes to the canal path, barely visible beyond the dark shadows within. “It’s a lot of work.” He wanted to say this added work was not a part of their agreement. He should be paid. But he said nothing, fearing he could lose his privilege of staying in the basement. Long shadows reached across the side yard into the jungle.

Sundays, Darren and Molly went to church. It was Clement’s day to ride Taylor’s bike into town, a bike with an annoying tic, but better than walking. He was eager to get to the bookstore. What money he had came from the sale of Taylor’s books to the used bookstore. Sundays, Clement went through Taylor’s collection of books, selecting the books he would cash in.

Standing at the counter by the large window that overlooked the street, Clement waited for the young woman shelving books. Their eyes met as she stood on a stool, reaching with a book in her hand, looking not unlike the statue of liberty, Clement thought. He smiled, his head at an angle in reverence. Or was it hope? It was his third visit to the bookstore, their third encounter. They were old friends, with no more than thirty words spoken between them.

“You’ve brought more books,” she said with a smile.

He returned the smile and added a nod.

She noted the titles, consulting her computer.

“I thought you’d like them,” he said, watching the corner of her cheek as she studied the screen. He was sure she had smiled.

“I mean, maybe not you, but…” He swept his arm across the tall shelves and the stairs with stacked books on each tread. “The people who buy your books.”

“Have you read these books?”

He put his hand to four days of whiskers. He should shave. “Not all.” He wanted to explain further, but there were no more words on the shelf.

She handed him cash and said, “You can get store credit, you know. Twice what you get in cash.”

He walked out folding the bills, stuffing them into his pocket, working over in his mind what words he could have used in the bookstore, words that would have kept the conversation going. He mounted Taylor’s bike. Why had he forgotten his trick of asking questions? She had preempted him. Talking with Molly was much easier. Turning onto the canal path, his thoughts turned to store credit. He’d never had credit. But it wouldn’t do him any good.

And drove to the bridge.

“Yow, general.” It was Paddy, the Jamaican Irishman. Or so he professed.

Clement saw no Irish in the man. He handed him a ten-dollar bill. A tenner, Paddy called it, and thanked Clement with a smile and a slap handshake.

It was midsummer when Molly announced Darren would be gone the next day.

“Meeting with some tire executives,” she said, placing his meal on the desk. She looked at the bed, the sheet and blanket tight, corners hospital tucked. It always impressed her how neat the man was.

He walked over from the reading chair, carrying a book. Reading while eating was an indulgence unfamiliar to him. Eating well after three years of feeling hungry and listless was a luxury. Add the inside of a book and Clement was almost giddy. Often Molly stayed in the basement, sitting close, as he ate, talking. He didn’t mind. Her stories were entertaining, and her questions of him were gentle probes he could lean away from if he chose.

“Your favorite,” she said, pulling up the seat she had placed next to the desk some time before.

“Thanks. You don’t have to do anything special for me, you know.” He placed the book on the desk and sat.

“It’s not special. Just what’s on the menu for tonight. With Darren gone tomorrow, it’ll be the two of us. We could eat together if you like.”

He paused before taking a bite. Was she asking him to eat upstairs in the kitchen with her? He knew Darren was a reluctant partner in their decision to allow him to stay in the basement. The man ignored him, directing his enquiries and demands through his wife. Molly treated him as a son. He was pleased, but there was also an element of discomfort.

“Darren doesn’t like me, does he? Otherwise, I would be eating upstairs, right?”

She stared at his face. Shaved as she had asked of him. Manly with that jaw and cheekbones. Pleasant to look at. Except he needed a haircut. “It’s not true that he doesn’t like you, Clement. It’s just that he prefers to eat alone. Like you sometimes.” She touched his arm. “No?”

Clement nodded. “I suppose.” He didn’t want to disagree with his patron, but he felt there was something not right with the man who lived upstairs and sold tires. “But he doesn’t eat alone. He eats with you.” Clement saw her look. “Doesn’t he?”

“He’s at the same table, if that’s what you mean?”

It wasn’t, but Clement was hesitant to pursue the topic head-on. Yet…

“He doesn’t hurt you, I hope.”

She reached for his hand. “That’s sweet. No, he might slap me a bit, but I slap back.”

“And Taylor? Did he hit Taylor?”

Molly remembered the last time Darren had been in the basement. He’d been outside weeding. Taylor was reading in his chair when Darren walked in holding a weeding claw and demanded Taylor’s help. Molly heard the shouts and later learned from Taylor that Darren ripped the arm of the chair with the claw to scare the boy into helping.

“No. He never hit Taylor,” she said, knowing it was a lie.

They talked about the progress in the basement, Molly marveling at how Clement could cut the drywall to fit around the electrical boxes. He shrugged, marveling to himself how easy it was to draw out the length of the project. Darren didn’t question his explanations, through Molly, of the intricacies involved. He felt secure in his new home, doling out time to both the basement finishing and yard improvements in a manner that satisfied everyone.

Clement finished his meal, listening to Molly talk about her neighbor, Paula, the one on the north side with the dogs who continued to get loose and piss on her tire planters.

“Dogs just love to pee on tires. Why is that?” Molly said. “And then they miss and hit my flowers. Darren is threatening to build a fence. Paula is against it. I am too. I don’t like fences, but what do you do?” She waved her hand, pursing her lips. “Have you ever put up a fence?”

Clement considered. Before he could reply, she changed the subject. “You don’t talk about your friends much, Clement.” She leaned her elbow on the table, her hand propped against her cheek. “You told me about Paddy, the Irish guy from Jamaica, but no one else. Do you have a girlfriend?”

He was moving his tongue over his teeth, divining for bits of food, raking the crevices. He stopped. The corner of her mouth betrayed a crooked smile.

“He’s not an Irish guy from…” He thought of the girl in the bookstore and her smile. “I have a friend at the bookstore. She’s just a friend.”

“You go to the bookstore?”

“To drop off Taylor’s old books. You said you wanted to get rid of them.”

She raised a brow. “To see the girl.”

“Maybe.”

Molly looked away. “Tomorrow, you eat in the kitchen like a man should, not in this basement.”

Clement heard her ascend the stairs. The door did not close behind her.

They ate leftover lasagna with bottled beer that sweated on the table, leaving a thick ring of water. Later, she invited him into the living room, where they watched a movie sitting on a long sofa. It matched the reading chair in the basement. The fabric looked new, as if it had been covered. And now uncovered. Although the movie wanted to hold his interest, Molly’s frequent comments and up-and-down trips to the kitchen interrupted it. She placed snacks on the coffee table that ensured them sitting closer together. Clement noted this and other movements Molly made, suspecting her motive, wondering how he should respond, as the images on the screen blurred and her hand searched for something ineffable.

When Darren returned, he took Clement to the edge of the property, where they talked about a fence while the two small dogs traded yips and paced their enclosure.

“Why not fix that thing so they can’t get out?” Clement said.

A shovel leaned against the wooden picket fence, ready to fill the holes after the dogs clawed their way to freedom.

Darren had suggested the same to the neighbor. It would be far less expensive than building a fence around his property. The neighbor was reluctant, wondering what architectural magic it would require. Darren wondered the same. He turned to Clement, the army engineer.

“What do you suggest? How would you keep them from digging?”

Molly came up. “What deed are you two planning?” she said. “Nothing illegal, I hope.” She placed her hand on Clement’s back, then dropped it to her side.

Darren turned and said, “Clement thinks we could make that dog run of Paula’s so the dogs can’t dig under it.”

“See, I told you he could help us.”

Clement watched the small terriers standing with their snouts between the pickets, eyeing the man from the basement, now in the yard, about to take on a new project. Clement explained what he had in mind, and Darren liked it.

The two of them talked with Paula.

“Can you do it without taking my poodles out of their pen?” she said.

“I don’t think they’re poodles,” Clement said. “But they can stay where they are.”

“You know poodles, young man?” Paula sized him up, looking down at his sandals where duct tape held his flapping sole in place.

“I know those terriers aren’t poodles.”

“Hah.” Paula laughed. “Of course, they’re not. They’re my poodles.”

Clement looked at Darren, who shrugged.

Near the end of summer, the basement was ready to paint. Darren even tolerated a quick survey of the once dark refuge. He entered from the outside sliding door, explaining to Clement that he wasn’t fond of stairs. Molly lifted her eyes. Now lit with recessed lights, the basement sported a proper bathroom with an enclosed shower. The raw shower head no longer hung like a drooping silver sunflower from the joists, draining to a hole in the concrete.

“Looks good,” Darren said, glancing at Taylor’s stack of books, less several boxes worth Clement had pawned at the bookstore. He walked to the door. “It’s no longer a fag’s hangout.” Sliding open the door, he said, “Get rid of the books while you’re at it.” And slid the door closed.

Clement looked at Molly.

“He wasn’t,” she said. “It’s just…” Her eyes were moist.

She pressed herself to Clement, laying her head against his chest. Clement raised his arms, hugging the surrounding air, thoughts and questions rising like burned bubbles.

Clement’s progress on the basement, his work on the jungle at the rear of the house, and his successful dog entrapment contributed to Darren’s confidence and trust in the man. So much so that he requested Clement’s help at the tire shop. This did not sit well with Molly, who had other ideas for Clement.

Darren suggested to her that Clement should eat upstairs with them.

“Really?” she said.

He became a regular at Darren and Molly’s table. Breakfast and dinner. Lunches he made for himself in the kitchen, taking the food downstairs to eat at his desk. His now. No longer Taylor’s. And read books recommended to him by Kristin at the bookstore.

The bookstore. Clement walked in, feeling the cool air. He hefted a box of books to the counter, looking at a new employee. She gave him a smile.

“Where’s Kristin?” He looked to his left.

“She’s upstairs, shelving. Can I help?”

Clement gave a silent sigh and told her of his arrangement for cashing in the books.

“Uh. Kristin will have to do that. I’m new here.”

“I’ll get her,” he said, climbing the stairs two at a time. He spied Kristin on a stool.

“You’ve come to bargain books, have you?” She dropped to the floor. “I was just thinking about you.”

Clement came up short. Who would think about me, he wondered, as joy rose in his face. “You were?”

“Yeah. Would you like to go to the concert tonight? At Market Square.”

He stood like a dope thinking over her words, seeing the tree through the window, one of many that lined the sidewalk along the storied street. He’d sometimes wandered past the square and listened to the music on the Fridays when they occurred. But he was always hungry, and the music could not satisfy that hunger. Instead, he frequented the art galleries that offered snacks and drinks to prospective patrons. He would put on his clean shirt and shorts, comb his hair in the reflection of an antique shop window and enter the galleries. After quickly browsing the paintings, photographs, pottery, and jewelry, he would make his way to the back where he found the food laid out on a table. Crackers, cheese, nuts, cookies, drinks. Examining the art in the back room like a connoisseur, he would eat.

It was not until she touched his arm and asked, “Are you here?” that his eyes met hers. It was in her eyes where he found the answer.

“Yes. Market Square tonight,” he said, but his mind would not let go of the crackers and cheese.

“Great.”

The concern only increased. He should offer to take her to dinner. With what money?

Entering the basement, he found Molly at the desk, writing him a note.

“You need a phone,” she said. “Where have you been?” She stood and gave him a kiss. “Darren won’t be home tonight till late.” Her arms clasped around his neck. “What’s wrong?”

“I have a date.”

“I thought you didn’t have a girlfriend.” She dropped her arms. “I’m your girlfriend, Clement.”

He stood looking at the wall, a bare wall in need of paint, where eyes of joint compound looked back at him. He sat at the desk and said, “I need to think.” His whole life, he allowed others to decide for him. In school, in the army, at the few paying jobs he had. It made him angry when he was in school, following the cabal of sharks through murky waters and courtrooms. The army provided order and direction and wiped his errant habits clean. Until it didn’t. Until the sharks appeared again. There seemed no cover from them, even in the army. He was told to leave—dishonorably. With no one left to follow and no home to return to, he wandered the streets.

“Can’t a person have more than one girlfriend?” He was not facing the person who welcomed him into her home and steered him clear of her husband during those first few weeks. Entering his mind for the first time in his life were thoughts that embraced a purpose, something to strive toward. A way to dig out of his lifelong predicament and make his own decisions. “You have a husband and a boyfriend. So, I should be able to have two girlfriends. Right?” His thoughts were tentative, testing the water, like once he tested the waters of the rising river. And fled. Now was different, though. He didn’t want to flee his basement sanctuary. Yet, he didn’t want to be chained to its circumstances. He looked at Molly, whose mind fidgeted with concern of her own, exploring a landscape of deceit, planting trees of truth to obscure the truth of what lay buried.

She brushed against him on her way to the stairs. “Don’t stay out late. Darren expects you at Boss Tire in the morning.”

It was near midnight when Clement returned. The lights were out in the house as he walked to the basement door and entered. He and Kristin had listened to the band at Market Square for almost two hours. They sat with a couple hundred people in chairs, on brick ledges and stone steps as the sounds of summer music bounced off the walls of old buildings and the cobblestones underfoot. Afterward, Kristin suggested dinner at a restaurant where a folk duo played.

“It’s not far,” she said. “You can walk your bike to it.”

He wasn’t thinking of the bike. He was thinking about how he would pay for the meal. Clement had twenty dollars in his pocket. “Is there a cover charge?”

“No. Don’t worry about the cost. I’ll take care of it.”

She must suspect I’m poor, he told himself. How could she not? He must tell her everything.

And he did, in the corner table where two guitars carried voices of plaintive soul over talking diners. From the loss of his parents to his time in the military and the aimless motion on the streets, he stepped off a bus six months ago with a sincere desire to change everything. He told her about his home beneath the bridge and the basement digs, about Molly and Darren, and the lady with the “poodles” next door. Kristin listened, laughed.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you got up right now and walked out,” he said, sipping a coke, waiting for the eight-ounce buffalo burger.

“Are you saying you’re a good-for-nothing blackguard?” Kristin smiled. “Clement, we just met. I’m not interested in marrying you. Why would I walk out? Your life is a story I’ve not heard. I work in a bookstore where what happens next is the question on every shelf.”

He brightened and touched her hand, a quick touch, as testing a hot iron. “Thanks.”

She looked down at the hand of a deeply self-doubting man and reached for it. “Just in telling me these things means you have the power to move on from them.”

When they finished dinner, Kristin suggested that they move to the porch where the music and the noise of dining people were muted. Clement followed, wishing he had thought of this.

“Tell me about Taylor. It’s sad his father just pushed him away. What do you know about him?”

The porch lights illuminated the shrubs in the side yard of this converted Georgian home, where flowers stood close like lovers and moths flew from the dark, crashing into the round bulbs strung among the trees.

“Not much,” he said. “Darren either had him banished to the basement or Taylor hid there. I guess Molly just stood to the side and let Darren bully the kid.”

“He would not be a tire man, so he had to go.”

“I guess. Molly said Taylor liked to help her arrange flowers when he was younger, and Darren made fun of him.”

“That must be sad for her. She doesn’t call him?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard her on the phone. But she must. She knows he lives in an apartment in Colorado.”

She sat close and bumped his shoulder. “So now he’s in Colorado living the highlife in a fancy apartment in Aspen.”

Clement looked at her face in the dim light and reached for her chin. She reached for his and they kissed.

“Clement,” Kristin said, holding his hand, “I have an old phone you could have. Based on what you’ve said about Molly, I bet she might allow you to be on her service plan.”

“She might. Thanks.”

“Come by the store tomorrow and pick it up.”

They walked back to the square where her car was parked. She gave him a hug and thanked him for his stories.

“I want to hear about Paddy next time we go out.”

He rode home, overcome with delight. “Next time we go out” remained in his mind as he rode through the streets, crossing the main road through town to the quiet neighborhoods to the north.

The house was silent. Clement lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking of Kristin, her words, her laugh, her lips. He didn’t tell her everything about his sad life. That would be too much. She would surely walk away. Enough to interest her. And it was all true. He turned on his side. On the mend, he whispered. Soon he was asleep.

The stair light came on. Footsteps. He leaned up on his elbows and saw Molly standing at the bottom of the stairs. She turned off the light and came forward, silhouetted by the sparse light from the door.

“Shh,” she said, removing her robe and sliding into bed.

At breakfast, Darren announced he would be gone on Monday. Another tire conference.

Molly smiled, glancing at Clement.

Darren wanted the painting in the basement completed by the time he returned. He looked at Molly. “I was talking to Steven at the shop. He thinks I should rent it out as an Airbnb. Make some money.”

“But what about…” Molly paused. “Clement can sleep in Taylor’s room.”

“That’s what I was thinking. And it’s about time you got paid, Clement. I’m bringing you on at the shop full time. What do you think?”

Clement raised his eyes. “Full time? Forty hours?”

Darren nodded. “Course, you’ll have to pay rent, but that won’t be a problem.”

“What’s my salary?”

“You’ll start at eleven dollars an hour, but I’m sure you’ll be making thirteen, fourteen in a year.”

“You’re charging him to stay here?” Molly asked.

“Of course. Why not?”

Clement said, “What’s the rent?”

“I’m thinking a thousand a month. That’s the going rate, according to Steven.”

Forty times eleven times four weeks. Clement stared at the wall, working out his monthly salary. He rounded the eleven to ten. Sixteen hundred dollars. Could he afford a car?

“A thousand?” Molly’s face flushed with anger. “After taxes, social security, and the rest of the shit they take out, he’ll be making about what he makes now. Zero.”

Darren got up from the table. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. Big sale today. I’ll be back late. In the meantime, do some homework on how Airbnb works.”

Molly came up behind Clement when Darren was gone. She wrapped her arms around his chest and said, “You’ll stay here for free. Come, I’ll show you Taylor’s room.” She took his hand. They ascended the carpeted stairs. It had taken him some months to rise from the basement to the first floor and now, in just a couple weeks, he was moving onto the top floor. As he followed Molly, he thought of how little effort it took to climb the stairs and how great an effort it may take to descend. Molly guided him to Taylor’s room, where the dormer windows overlooked the street and the bed sat at an angle, not against any wall.

“I never understood why he liked the bed this way,” Molly said, sitting on the bed.

Clement examined the pictures on the walls, pictures selected and drawn by an adolescent with an eye for the beauty of the natural world. Molly reached out and pulled Clement to her by his belt, unbuckling it with an accomplished eagerness. Clement pulled away and sat next to her, his pants flapped open.

“What?” she said.

Clement considered Darren’s offer of employment and his rise to the second floor. He saw for the first time a real future. But Molly’s insistence on sex at every opportunity was not what he wanted, although, he realized, it may be the price to remain in Molly’s graces. If she could convince Darren not to charge him rent, might it be worth the price? His head hurt and he thought of Kristin. And Taylor.

“Tell me about Taylor,” he said.

She frowned and reached for him. He grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips.

“You have changed,” she said, pulling her hand away. “Why do you want to know about Taylor? I’ve told you everything.”

“I want to know why his being gay would cause you and Darren to kick him out of this house.”

“We didn’t kick him out. It was his choice to leave.”

“After you and Darren told him he wasn’t wanted. That he was…an…” Clement searched for the word. A word he knew but couldn’t raise. Abomination.

“That he was a freak, Clement. He acted like a freak, a homo. But it wasn’t him. I know it. I know my boy. He was just timid and let other kids walk all over him.”

“No. You and Darren walked all over him. You were supposed to be his parents.”

They sat with no words. Clement took her silence as confirmation of his assertion. And he took her words as descriptors for himself. He was Taylor, an abomination, but someone to be reformed. And now, he’ll live in this room high above the basement. No longer an abomination. Accepted. Loved in some manner.

Molly leaned over and hugged him, whimpering into his chest. “I’m sorry.”

Clement put his arm over her shoulder, more as a reaction than a desire. He looked across the room. A watercolor of a flower. The vertical slash of a brush created its single stem, and the petals, ovals made in similar fashion, two bold mirror-imaged strokes each. Done by an angry artist. Angry at all that existed in his world.

Clement stood and fastened his pants. “I need to go into town. I’m getting a phone. Can you put it on your plan?”

“A phone? How can you afford one?”

“It’s used. No cost.”

Molly stood and raised her arms to Clement’s shoulders. “Will I lose you?” She looked into his eyes. “It’s Kristin’s phone, isn’t it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You should bring her by. I’d like to meet her.”

“Sure.” He took her arms and moved them to her sides.

She had tears in her eyes and said, “I’ll give you the information for the phone. Darren won’t charge you rent. I promise.”

He moved to the door, and she said, “I’m making shrimp scampi tonight.”

A smile and he walked to the stairs.

Molly sat on the edge of the bed and said, “He’s changed so much.”

In the basement, Clement grabbed a box of books. The carrier for the bike was a simple sling he made of twine. He felt an unfamiliar pleasure, as he tied the box to the handlebars. Opening the basement door, he pushed the bike to the street and rode into town, smiling, oblivious of a pothole just past the bridge. The box fell on the front tire, breaking in two, spilling the books before him—all hardcover—causing him to drive over these paper cobbles until he regained his balance and stopped. He leaned the bike against the curb and surveyed the disaster, a mess of books, flopped like dead birds in the street, wings spread, face down, face up, feathers quavering in the morning breeze.

“Yuh might be needin’ a han, me boy,” Paddy said from behind him.

Clement turned and greeted his friend. “You be right,” Clement said.

That’s how Kristin came to meet Paddy. The man with a grizzled beard, gray with matching brows that feathered over onyx eyes, elbowed the door open, carrying a stack of books hooked beneath his chin. Clement followed him, carrying a similar stack in similar fashion. Kristin faced them from behind the counter, fascinated by the sight of an old black hobo and his white partner holding towers of books before her. She hurried around the counter to a table, sliding the displayed books aside and pointing. The men set the stacks down. Twin towers of books stood before the three of them. Kristin twisted the towers, so the titles faced out—Clement insisted Paddy stack them titles out—and stepped back.

“You must be Paddy,” she said, offering her hand.

After the introductions, Kristin did a quick accounting of the titles by sight and pulled two twenties from the register, handing one each to the bookmen. Clement handed his bill to Paddy, announcing he’d been offered a job and wouldn’t need handouts anymore.

Paddy fingered the bills as if they were the finest silk. He looked at Kristin and said, “Bless yuh, sista.”

Kristin looked at the tall, underweight Jamaican with dirt on his knees—older than dirt went through her mind—and hands muscled like tree roots. “Bless you, Paddy,” she said.

Clement told her he had to get his bike. He’d stashed it next to a park bench. He and Paddy took off with Paddy ragging him about his new girlfriend.

“Nah like yuh hul wan,” he said. Clement had told Paddy about Molly, not without detail.

They walked in good humor, but stopped as the park bench came into view. The bike was gone. The friends did a quick search of the area. Paddy shrugged and said, “Likkle more den.” The man from Jamaica with Irish blood walked to his home beneath the bridge. Clement walked back to the bookstore.

He found the store crowded, more than a typical Saturday. Kristin stood by a display of books atop a freestanding shelf unit. Fourteen books were stacked and chained with a padlock securing them together. A sign read: “Banned by the Spotswood County School Board. Free to borrow if you go to Spotswood Schools.”

She was talking with a group of teenage kids.

Clement listened, lingering over the loss of Taylor’s bike, but brightened by the prospect of getting a phone. He caught her eye and walked to the history section, not because he was interested in history but because there was a chair in the corner, and he wanted to sit and think.

“You seem troubled,” Kristin said, handing him a phone.

“Just thinking about my situation with Molly and Darren. I need to get away from them.” He stood, holding the phone, admiring the feel, the weight of the thing.

“Like their son did.”

“Yeah. It’s like a place with no soul.”

She would be off at six and suggested they have dinner together. Two dinners back-to-back. He smiled.

In the basement, he lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. A feeling of happiness touched him. He felt protected, renewed. Now he must decide. Just after five, he left for town, ensuring he wouldn’t meet Molly when she returned from work.

They went to a small restaurant not far from the bookstore. Tables under a tent. A band played and beer flowed. The place was raucous. When they finished their meal, he said he needed quiet. She suggested the place where they ate last night, on the porch where the moths congregated, and the breeze flowed free through the garden of shrubs and flowers. She asked him about the place with no soul. For over four months, he told her, he’d lived in the house. At first it was a refuge, then a luxury and a place of work. It seemed a perfect place to hide from his past troubles.

“Then Molly pressed herself against me—literally—and I became uncomfortable.” He met her eyes, knowing he would lie to her or, at best, omit the most damaging parts.

“You’re saying Molly traded sex for your room and board?”

He studied her face. How could he lie? She was too intelligent, too perceptive. And he didn’t want to lose her over a lie. He nodded. “And I allowed it.”

She looked away. They sat in a silence that admitted only the patter of powdered wings against glass and the hushed tones of diners inside.

“How often did this happen?” She turned back. “Does it still?”

“No. I stopped it.”

“You’re telling me because you want sympathy?”

“I’m telling you because I want you to know the truth.”

She stared, and a smile came over her face. She got up and laughed.

It mystified him. “What?”

“I don’t know that I’ve known anyone like you, Clement. You’ve charmed me with your self-effacing, honest ways. I hardly know you, yet that charm has taken me in to where I feel jealous and… and cheated on. I can’t believe it.”

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intent.”

She walked to the rail and watched the moths. The moon shone as a sickle through the trees. “Will you come here and kiss me?” she said.

He spent the night with Kristin. Late morning, she drove him to his place. When he entered the basement, Molly opened the door at the top of the stair and walked down. Clement anticipated this, inventing lies.

“You spent the night with Kristin,” she said, standing on the last step, her hand on the newly painted wall.

 Clement saw only her shadow cast against the opposite wall. He would answer with the truth, knowing he could lose his home. “Yes.”

She didn’t move. “I suppose that’s your prerogative.”

“Yes.”

She stepped to the floor and turned to the bed. Clement sat at the desk, peering at his phone. He looked up. She came to the bed and sat next to him.

“You’ve changed quite a bit, you know.”

He put the phone on the desk. They stared at each other, she waiting for a response, he waiting for her to show her anger and demand he leave.

“The new clothes I bought you, the new shoes so you don’t have to deal with those damn sandals, the good food I cook, the way I’ve convinced Darren to accept you and now welcome you as a new employee. Everything done to transform you into a respected human being.” She pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes, wiping the tears aside. “You are human, aren’t you?”

He saw sorrow and wanted to reach for her.

“I wonder sometimes. The night you came in, the night it was raining like a drowned dog as you said, or whatever it was, some hillbilly saying. I sat there within arm’s length talking to you and you were as dry as an iron skillet in the sun.” Her voice rose. “And that’s not hillbilly. It’s my mother. How did you walk in from the rain completely dry?” She pointed, a scowl on her face. “You’ve been lying to me from the start.”

Clement looked at his new shoes, used from the thrift store, but nice, comfortable.

“I never had a mother. You’ve been my mother. And I’m grateful. But you want to add lover. I can’t go along with that. Your love… It’s too much. I’m not your lover. I’m not your son. I’m just a man who showed up in your basement one night.”

She reached back to that night, remembering her thoughts, her hope. She took Clement’s hand. “Will you be my son? I can live without a lover.”

Clement could not reconcile his thoughts. Where does a request for sympathy end and manipulation begin?

“Molly, you need your own son. Taylor. You let Darren throw him out of the house. Call him. Allow him to be your son again.”

Molly pulled her hand back and sat up. “Taylor is a disappointment.”

“A disappointment would be dropping your ice cream cone on the sidewalk. Taylor is not a disappointment…” Clement saw her deep frown.

“Who are you?” she said. “How did you get so knowledgeable? And lose your hillbilly talk?”

Clement glanced at the painted wall behind her, where the wide-eyed patches no longer looked out at him.

“You’re not the same man I met in this basement that morning after the rain.”

Clement glanced at his new phone. It was useless without service. He couldn’t afford it now and if he didn’t get the job at Tire Boss, he wouldn’t be able to afford it in the future. If he alienated Molly, would Darren still hire him?

“I’m the same person, Molly. You’re right that I’ve been educated. Not by the books, but by you and Darren. You’ve taught me how dark your world is. I don’t want to be a part of it. And I don’t think you do either. It’s Darren who’s bent your mind. Darren’s poison flowed into every room of this house but the basement. Get rid of him and call Taylor.”

Molly shook her head in disbelief. She disliked being lectured to. By the person she saved from ruin, nonetheless. She sat with her hands in her lap, her eyes on the floor. Darren no longer loved her and certainly didn’t love Taylor. Her relationship with Taylor as he grew older was fraught with misunderstanding and acrimony. But she never gave up hope that he would return.

“When was the last time you talked to him?”

Molly looked up, thinking back to the day Taylor walked from the house. She turned toward the door, the grass beyond, and saw Taylor holding a large duffel. He wore his favorite shirt, Hawaiian hibiscus, in silk. She watched as he turned the corner and disappeared.

“Eight years. He said he loved me. Then he was gone.” Her fingers turned the silver ring on her left hand. “I wanted to say I loved him, but he left so quickly.”

“Let’s go up and get your phone. He probably has the same number.”

Clement stood and walked to the stair. Molly sat for seconds, her eyes on the door just beyond Clement. “I’ll bring the phone down here,” she said. “Darren might come in any time.”

When she returned, she sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the phone in her palm. “What will I say?”

“Say you’re his mom and you wanted to see how he was doing.”

Clement sat with her, staring at the thin rectangle in her hand as if it had some power. He had no idea how this would go. His concern was it would lead to shouting and recriminations. He knew he was walking on glass. His job selling tires in the balance. But he needed to hear Taylor’s voice, hear his words. To know a small slice of his soul. And maybe more, to know Taylor had a home to come to if he desired. He watched Molly pick up the phone. She looked at him for an instant then brought up her son’s number.

“Taylor? It’s Mom. How are you?”

Clement listened, wishing she had put the phone on speaker. He watched Molly’s eyes, her face, heard her words. There was happiness, delight. He sat back.

“What?” Molly shouted. “That’s wonderful. What’s her name?”

Clement learned from the one-sided conversation that Taylor was living in Baltimore, only a couple of hours away. He wanted to visit.

“He’s bringing his new wife,” Molly said when the call ended. “Next weekend, Saturday. He has a job and an apartment. And Denise. That’s his wife’s name.” She stood up and clapped, twirling, steadying herself with a hand on Clement’s shoulder. “I’ll fix lunch. They can’t stay long, but we can have lunch. You should bring Kristin. I can meet the wife and your girlfriend all at once. It’ll be glorious, Clement.” She leaned over and hugged him, her tears brushing his cheek. “Thank you. You were so right.”

Clement smiled.

“I hope you still have some of his books down here. He said he’d like to pick them up.”

“Some. I’m sure he’ll understand. It’s been eight years.”

The next week began Clement’s full-time work at Tire Boss. He felt underwhelmed with his duties as a tire changer, not as a salesman, but he was happy to have a paying job. Darren said he needed to learn the entire business from the bottom up. Saturday overtime would come later. In the evenings he sat at the dinner table with Darren and Molly, listening to their banter. Darren commented on Molly’s especially “upbeat” mood. “I’m just in a good mood, I guess,” she said, tossing a wink in Clement’s direction. In the mornings, when Darren was in the shower, Molly steeled time in the basement with Clement, talking about the upcoming visit with Taylor and his new wife. She told Clement he should wait to move into Taylor’s room on the second floor. “Taylor might have lingering feelings for it,” she said and described the time Taylor won first place for one of his paintings that still hung in the room. Her buoyance was contagious, Clement laughing with his own anticipation. When she ascended the stairs, he sat in silence worrying about all that could derail the visit—and derail his position in this precarious family.

The weekend came. Clement and Kristin arrived early. Clement was to keep a lookout for the couple while Molly and Kristin fussed with the lunch. When the car pulled into the driveway, the three of them walked out to greet Taylor and Denise. Molly stood on the sidewalk with eight years of anticipation bound within her. Kristin had her hand on Molly’s shoulder with Clement to her side on the grass. Molly walked forward and stopped as a tall, dark-haired woman emerged from the passenger side. She wore sunglasses and had on a knee length flowered dress and platform sandals. Molly noticed the flowers, the slim waist. A real beauty, she said to herself. From the driver’s side, a woman came around the front of the car wearing flare pants of tiny multicolored flowers.

The beauty came forward, walking across the grass. “Hi, Mom. I’m so happy to see you.”

Molly raised her hands palms out, then pulled them back, cradling her face.

Clement reached his hand out. “Hi, Taylor. I’m Clement, your mom’s tenant. I live in the basement—”

Taylor raised her sunglasses to her head, her eyes on her mother. “Nice to meet you,” she said, watching as her mother turned around.

Kristin stood in Molly’s path. Molly was in tears, holding her head in her hands, unable to move.

“Mom,” Taylor said, moving past Clement, catching Kristin’s eye as Kristin held Molly.

Taylor put her hand on Molly’s shoulder as Kristin released the quivering woman and Taylor stepped close. “Mom, it’s still me inside. The same person you gave birth to and tried to raise.”

Molly lowered her hands, unable to look up at Taylor’s face. She examined her dress instead, noting the hibiscus flowers, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist.

Kristin, Clement, and Denise stood together watching the fractured reunion.

Denise said to Kristin, “Well, this is splendid.” She took a step forward then turned to the street. A strange ticking sound and a man on a bike.

Clement knew the sound. Paddy coasted down the street on Taylor’s bike, standing with one foot on a pedal as he turned into the driveway and jumped off. All eyes were on him as he walked the bike up behind the car.

Clement glanced at Taylor and Molly, who had been staring at the ground between them but now took in Paddy’s easy gate up the drive.

“You found it,” Clement said to the Jamaican Irishman.

Paddy tipped his head to the congregation on the sidewalk. “Mi come at ah bod time?”

From the sidewalk came a harsh cry. “What’s he doing here?”

Clement turned to see Taylor walking across the lawn, followed by Molly.

“Taylor, this is Paddy,” Clement said. “He found—”

Taylor’s face was contorted with anger, transforming her beauty. “I don’t care who he is. Get him away from my bike.”

Clement and Paddy stood transfixed by the woman in the hibiscus dress. Paddy bent toward Clement and whispered, “Bonshee.”

She came up glaring, followed by Molly.

 “This is Paddy?” Molly said. “Your homeless friend? Get him out of here, Clement. I’ll have no Africans in my yard. Understand?”

Paddy dropped the bike, his fists clenching, as he stared at a lifetime of animus.

Kristin took Paddy’s hand, covering his knotted fingers. “Come on, Paddy. I’ll drive you back into town. I know where we can have lunch.”

“Clement,” Molly called. “Not you.”

From the car, they saw a glowering woman standing tall on the sidewalk. Holding her arm in unity stood Molly, half her face shadowed by her son.