Unmistakably Joyful

Mercy Chapter 4

Previous Chapter: I'm the Sorry One Here!

Dave looked forward to quiet solitude as he also left the restaurant on foot. He needed time to consider this opportunity. His landlords, who lived in the rest of the house, had children, but the muffled noise didn’t bother him. They’d still be in school for a little while, anyway. The house was fairly large, with a dramatic curved porch featuring gingerbread trim that swooped from the front to the side. He couldn’t decide if it had once been a grand house or had just aspired to be, but he suspected the latter. The neighborhood didn’t seem like it had ever been prosperous. His walk took him first by the hulking old mill buildings, then the food pantry, where he often saw (and, truth be told, considered joining) long lines trailing up the sidewalk. Past that was the liquor store, an abandoned old school, and several sagging apartment buildings, wooden three-story structures with flattish roofs that were ill-advised in a place with heavy snowfall.

His house had been built as a single-family dwelling, but by knocking holes for doors in some places and walling over others, a cobbled together studio apartment had appeared in one large dormer. His dark, steep, narrow staircase divided the space up into a “kitchen” on the left, where he had to stoop to fry eggs on his hotplate, and a living room/bedroom, where he slept on a futon that by day became his couch. At the head of his stairs was a compact bathroom.

It was small, but all that he needed, and cheap, so he was happy. He enjoyed the company of his landlords and that was, after all, priceless. Kim was slight with straight brown hair that hung just below her jaw, dark bangs in a stark line across her forehead. She was very quiet except when she needed her kids and they were in another room. Because she was shy and still getting used to Dave being around, she tried to avoid running into him, but was very kind when she did. Her shoulders pulled forward and in a bit, like she was protecting her heart, and her demeanor suggested that she wasn’t sure she was worth knowing or that anyone wanted to hear what she had to say.