Chapter 2

I followed John from Perlione's over to his house. As we pulled into the driveway, he rolled down his window and motioned to the left. I noticed that the driveway was made of bricks, like a chimney and there was an additional section where he was pointing that was not in front of the garage. I pulled over to the left as he drove straight into the garage. As soon as he got out, he placed a call on his cell phone and disappeared through a door in the back.

I let the kids out, then we went behind the car and opened the trunk. The two boxes of toys were too much for me and I knew neither of the girls could handle the second one. We finally took a couple of the smaller toys out for Billy to carry, then Laurie piled some in Annette's arms. Laurie took the box with the rest of them into the house.

Laurie led the way through the garage. While there was plenty of room to walk, there was too much stored on the sides for a second car to fit. There were a couple of doors close to each other in the back corner. The one in back had a window in it and I could make out a swimming pool in the distance. There was no window on the other. I noticed that both of them had doggie doors installed, big enough for Bozo to get through.

We went through the door John had used and found ourselves in the kitchen. To my left was a wall that came out five feet or so into the kitchen. At the corner was another wall with a door in it that ran to the kitchen wall on our left. I noticed that the ceiling above the first wall was low, slanting up to just above the door we'd come through and continuing to slope until it disappeared beyond the wall to our right, above an arch that opened into the dining room. Further into the kitchen, past that five foot wide slope was a standard ceiling, eight feet above the ground. I couldn't figure it out until Laurie opened a door on the wall to our left, just inside that little room. Instead of opening to the back yard, we came upon a landing, about eight feet wide and four feet deep. On our right was another door. I opened it up to see a small enclosed patio. I could see the swimming pool a little further out when I stuck my head through.

I closed the door and went in the other direction. On my left was a stairway, going up. It was between four and five feet wide, thus solving the mystery of the slanted ceiling. Nancy Drew should have it so easy.

There was another door opposite the stairs. I opened it and Laurie said "Washer." I saw extra large commercial washing and drying machines, shelves for clothes and more stocked with detergent, bleach, softeners, and other washing stuff and a wide closet on the other side with a clothes rod and assorted clothes hangers on it. There was another door at the back of this room, too.

The stairs were covered in a green shag carpet, years out of date but still serviceable. The four of us climbed up, only to find our way blocked by a door. Laurie put her box down and grabbed the right side of the door, yanking it sideways, similarly to a glass door that might lead to a patio. I noticed that the door disappeared inside the wall of the hallway we had come to.

She picked up the box and we stepped out on a landing. In front of us were the stairs I'd come up earlier, a curving, free floating structure made of cobblestone steps and wrought iron.

We turned left and started down a hallway. The first door was on the left.

"That's Billy's room," said Laurie. We went inside. His dresser was against the wall and the drawers were all on his bed, the newspaper still taped to them. I had all three kids put their loads on the vacant part of the bed and I put my box down next to them.

"You guys need to go through these and take them to the right room before dinner. It's not hard; there are only two of you. I don't want any fighting. If there's something you both think is yours, put it in a special pile and I'll go through all of them at the same time when you're done."

I got an OK from all three of them.

"All right, let's rip this paper off the drawers and put them in the dresser."

Billy's dresser has three wide drawers. Two of them were on the bed; the third was on top of one of the others. Laurie grabbed the paper on one while Annette got the other and a couple of seconds later the paper was history. I took the drawer on top.

"Let Billy do the last one. Scrunch the paper up into a ball and put it all down here, next to his dresser."

Billy did the best he could with a little help from his sister. Within two minutes the drawers were where they belonged and the newspaper was fairly neat, all in one place.

There was a door just past his dresser with a light switch to the left, then another door. I turned on the switch and opened the first door.

It was one big closet, served by both doors. The few clothes of his that had been on hangers at the apartment were neatly hanging in front of the door I'd opened: a coat, a jacket and a couple of sweaters.

Laurie pointed to a door on the far wall. "That's his bathroom."

I went inside and there was a very nice bathroom with a tub and shower combination, a toilet and a sink. There was a Formica counter top on both sides of the sink. There was also a clothes hamper next to the end of the counter. I noticed that Jill had made sure that Billy's potty seat was next to the toilet and his step stool was in front of the sink.

"Are you going to use this bathroom too, Annette?" I asked.

"No, she and I are gonna share," said Laurie.

"Where does this other door go to?" I asked.

"Out here," said Laurie, opening it and stepping into the hallway.

She pointed to a doorway across the hall, a few feet closer to the landing we'd just come from. "That's your room, Myra." She then turned around and headed further down the hallway with the other two following her. They went into the next doorway they came to, on the right side.

I followed them in. It was easy enough to tell this was Annette's room. As with Billy's, Annette's dresser drawers were all on the bed. The boxes all had her name on them, including her plastic toy box. The two doors to the closet were on the right wall, the one for the bathroom was on the left.

We did the dresser drawer routine with Annette's drawers only this time we had to take out the things they'd wrapped in her clothes. There was a picture of Jerry holding Billy in his arms that had always been on Billy's dresser. He grabbed it and ran into his room with it.

The two rooms my kids had been given here were both about the same size. Not quite as large as the master bedroom I'd had in the old apartment but probably about one and a half times the size of the room they'd shared for the past three years.

"Is this room going to be big enough for you, Annette?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, just be careful you don't get lost."

She and Laurie both laughed.

I felt something against my leg and looked down to see Posie trying to get my attention. I squatted down and petted her. "Hey, Posie. How did you get up here?"

"She can get up the back stairs," Laurie told me. "The carpet's real thick and she just climbs right up."

I lifted her up to my face. "Well, aren't you clever? Did you come up here to welcome me to my new house?" She licked me as her hind end wiggled.

I put her down and Annette bent down to pet her. Laurie took my hand and led me into a bathroom off Annette's room. There was an open door directly across from the one we came in. Laurie pointed at it and said, "That's my room."

"Oh, Laurie. You're going to have to share your bathroom with Annette? We could move you to the other side and bring Billy over here. He and Annette are used to sharing a bathroom."

"It's OK. We already talked about it over at my sister's house. It'll be fine."

"OK, if you're sure."

The bathroom was very similar to Billy's. I think there may have been a bit more room in the tub. I noticed a set of bamboo shelves where the door was in Billy's with towels, toilet paper and things like shampoo and body wash on it. There was a box of clear trash bags for the wastebaskets I'd noticed in all the rooms. I pulled one of the bags out.

"There's no door to the hallway."

"Nope. This one's a secret bathroom."

"I see."

We exited into Laurie's room. Something about it didn't seem right. Like it had been thrown together.

"Laurie, was this always your room?"

She looked surprised but she said, "No, I just moved here."

"Where were you before?"

"Your room."

"Hmmm. Why did you move?"

"So I could be with Annette. The other room's way down by itself."

"OK. I want to see my room." I put the bag on her bed. "Put the newspaper in this bag when you sort out the toys later, please."

We left Laurie's room and stepped into the hall. Posie followed us. She seemed a little anxious.

"That's Daddy's room," said Laurie, pointing to a double doorway across the hall and further down.

We passed a door on the right. "Billy's bathroom. Billy's room."

Annette and Billy came out of Annette's room as we passed by. Billy jumped out in front of us and giggled when I pretended to be scared.

"This is your room," Laurie told me. Posie squeezed by me and and lay down on a big pillow inside a wooden frame on the floor. She looked at us as if she wasn't sure she should be there.

"That's her bed," said Laurie. "It's too heavy for me to take it to my new room."

I looked around. There were a lot of shelves with children's books, dolls and stuffed animals, DVDs and some old video tapes.

"We can get the bed. What about all the toys and things on the shelves?"

"Those are Jill's."

"Ahh. This is her old room?"

"Uh huh."

"It's a nice room, Laurie. Are you sure you'll be OK in the smaller one down there?"

"Uh huh. I don't need that big a room."

"OK. Let's see about Posie's bed."

I went over to the bed and checked it out., It was essentially a four foot square dog pillow with a square frame around it. Probably something thrown together by Alex.

"If you guys can get the pillow, I can take the frame."

Laurie nudged Posie off the pillow and she and Annette picked it up and took it out and down the hall. I got one side of the frame and carried it behind them.

The girls were standing inside the door, still holding the pillow when I got to Laurie's room. Posie looked nervous.

"Having trouble figuring out where to put it?"

"Uh huh."

"How about if we move that box? You think that's enough room?"

"Yeah."

I put the frame down on its edge, leaning against the door frame, then picked up the box of games and put it on Laurie's bed. I got the frame and it fit like it belonged there. The girls put the pillow inside the frame and Posie jumped onto the pillow.

"Have you got anything else you need to move out of your old room?"