4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
What Gets Taken Care Of
Seventeen hundred dollars changes hands in driveways whilst secrets hide in bedroom wardrobes. Gladys returns truck keys and concrete diagrams, discusses memorial services for bodies that don't exist, discovers phone numbers on wine bottles. Luke shoves backpacks deep into corners, counts diminishing cash reserves, watches money bleed away faster than answers arrive. Some exchanges involve payment for shelving. Others involve the slow realisation that everything costs more than anticipated.
Arrivals announce themselves through voices calling from entryways whilst safe lids slam in upstairs bedrooms. Luke scrambles—backpack into wardrobe shadows, wardrobe door groaning accusations, pulse hammering whilst footsteps measure themselves towards casual normality. Gladys enters with truck keys, concrete diagrams, completion of delivery tasks that shouldn't have involved covering murders.
"We really should give him a proper burial." The suggestion arrives with the force of moral imperative. "We don't have a body to bury." "You know what I mean. Like a memorial service." Luke concedes—eleven tonight, short and simple, because symbols sometimes matter more than sense.
Then comes the bill. Seventeen hundred for shelving that justifies presence during chaos. Luke counts crisp hundreds from wallet containing twenty, hands seventeen across car windows whilst relief and resentment wrestle internally. "Only three more left," whispered to empty driveways after silver Honda disappears.
Gladys returns home to find Cody's apology note beside wine bottles, phone numbers scribbled on labels like secrets tucked into corners. Questions multiply: How did he know where Luke lived? Why doesn't he reply to texts? What exactly got taken care of when that second truck vanished through Portals?
Absence speaks loudest. Missing dogs. Unanswered messages. Money disappearing faster than mysteries resolve. Some afternoons end with cats purring whilst phones stay stubbornly silent. Others end counting what little remains.
