January 2nd, 2019
"Jennifer! You said you'd play with me!"
"I said I'd think about it," his big sister replied without looking up from the book she was reading.
"That's the same thing!" her younger brother said back loudly enough that it caught their mother's attention.
"Jonah? Do you want to come help me?" she asked cheerfully and with a warm smile.
She was hoping that even at the age of seven, her son could still be distracted by something that simple. She was already on overload, and the last thing she needed was more stress.
"Help you with what?" he asked, suddenly interested and having taken the bait.
"I need someone big and strong to go up in the attic and see if there's a large trunk somewhere up there."
"I'm big!" he told her as the thought of getting to go up in the attic, a place he'd only been in twice before and loved, had his full, undivided attention.
"Yes, you are! So how about you go get your shoes on and I'll be right there, okay?"
"Okay, Mom!" he happily replied having forgotten all about his sister's promise to play with him.
Once he was gone, she sat down by her nine-year old daughter and forced herself to smile again.
"Jennifer? I know your brother gets on your nerves, but you did promise to play with him."
When she didn't respond, her mother said, "I know you're too old to play the games he likes, but you did promise."
Jennifer knew she couldn't get away with saying she'd only promised to think about it, because her mother heard her say it less than an hour ago.
"Okay. Fine. I'll play with him," the nine-year old said with a hint of attitude in her voice.
"Thank you, honey, and you know that when you try and get out of a promise, it's not right."
Her daughter knew that lying was the number one rule in their house, and she knew why. She was now old enough to know that what she did was lying, and no amount of soft-pedaling could change that fact.
"Yes," she quietly said.
"Telling the truth is extremely important. If we lie, people won't trust us. And if people can't trust, they..."
"They won't want to be our friend," her daughter said finishing the sentence she'd heard many times.
"That's right. So once Jonah gets done helping me, spend some time with him, okay?"
Her daughter finally looked at her, but she still refused to smile, so her mom leaned her way a bit and said, "Even if it KILLS you!"
Her antics earned her a smile and even a little laugh, so her mom hugged her and told her she loved her.
"I love you, too, Mom," Jennifer said, causing her mother to have to blink hard several times before letting go.
Henley Lesco had never been an overly emotional woman, but since her husband left her just over a year ago, she'd worn her emotions on her sleeve with sadness and self-pity being the ones she most often felt.
She was stilling using his last name, mostly for the kids' sake, even though it was the same name as a brand of lawn fertilizer, and the thought of returning to her maiden name of Price was something that crossed her mind quite often.
She was well aware that there was often no rhyme or reason why one person in a marriage strayed, but in this case it was downright baffling. She'd done everything a wife could possibly do to make a husband happy from learning to cook or bake almost anything to staying fit and reasonably slim, even after having two children, to being the kind of woman in bed nearly any man would dream of. And yet it hadn't been enough.
When he told her late one night that he'd been having an affair it hit her so hard she not only couldn't speak, she couldn't even feel. She sat there...numb...unable to even move as he went on and on about how sorry he was, how he never meant to hurt her, that it 'just happened', and that he'd pay child support on time every month, and not take a penny more than half of what they jointly owned.
Her 42-year old ex-husband—as of exactly one week ago—was an associate professor at Kansas State University in their hometown of Manhattan, Kansas, and the new 'woman of his dreams' was a 21-year old undergrad named Chloe, another name she now hated. It was petty in the extreme, but Henley was okay with allowing herself to be a little bit petty after all she'd been through.
She'd never cared much for her given name, either, while growing up, but as time went by she loved having been named something outside of all the trendy names parents gave their kids in any given year. Yes, it was the name of a man's three-button shirt, but it was unique, it was hers, and now, at the age of 39, she was very proud of it.
As awful as the affair had been on her, the hardest thing to take had been watching the way their two children reacted to the news when their father tried to explain why he wouldn't be living at home anymore.
Even now she wasn't sure which child had been hurt the most as both had been devastated by the news. Jonah had always been quiet, but his way of coping became acting out. He was still a good kid, but he was a very different little boy.
Jennifer, on the other hand, had always been happy, pleasant, and outgoing. Now, she was quiet, introverted, and preferred staying home and reading books. The reading part was wonderful, but it, too, was such a change that Henley's heart went out for her daughter every time she saw her in her room reading, and even more so when two or three weeks would go by with no contact from her father.
Making matters worse, even with child support and her own full-time job, there was rarely any money left over for the kids after paying the bills. She and the children continued to live in their four-bedroom house, and one of those bedrooms had only ever really been used for storage. The kids had their rooms downstairs, and the 'spare bedroom' as they all called it, was upstairs and down the hall from the master where she slept. Alone.
Living near a college town meant she could easily find someone to rent the room in a matter of a day or two—especially with the second semester of the academic year getting ready to start. The problem was finding someone she could trust in her house, and more importantly by far, trust completely around her two children. She'd resisted renting it out during the first semester for that very reason, but she was now at a point where she either had to do so or take a second, part-time job. And because being away from her children any more than she already needed to be was completely unacceptable, the proverbial handwriting seemed to be on the wall. Selling the house and moving into a smaller place was an option, but this was the only house her children had ever lived in, and she saw that as a last resort.
"What do you see, buddy?" Henley called out to her son who was up in the attic with a flashlight looking around.
"Um...lots of stuff!" he hollered back.
His mom knew he was fascinated by the spooky room above the house, so she let him explore for a couple of minutes just to have some fun, a thought that also made her feel sad because fun wasn't something they had very often. At least not if it required spending money.
"What color is it?" Jonah eventually asked.
It had been up there longer than he'd been alive, and Henley needed it to put things from the spare bedroom in it. It didn't need to be in good shape, it just needed not to be falling apart.
"It's blue, honey," she called out as she climbed up the collapsible ladder high enough to see her son who shined the light right in her eyes.
"Sorry, Mom!" he said as he turned it on the trunk.
"Yep. That's the one. Are you big enough to drag it over here to me?" she asked with a smile.
"Of course I am!" he told her.
The trunk was huge but it was empty and it only weighed about 20 pounds, and Jonah was able to slide it close enough to the opening in the ceiling so that his mom could bring it down.
But it wasn't until she had it stuffed with...stuff...that she realized she couldn't get it back up there by herself. That was the bad news. The good news was that the bedroom was now uncluttered and could be cleaned in order to rent out.
KSU had a website, and one of the pages was for advertising. Rooms for rent off campus were always in demand, and with the second semester of the school year starting in a few days, Henley felt pretty sure she could find a responsible, quiet tenant in short order as most returning students would already be back in town.
The only remaining issue was price with the amount depending on whether or not she planned to include meals and or laundry service, and that caused her to wonder if she would have to actually prepare food three times a day or just make it available. Because she had a job, she couldn't possibly be there to make lunch during the week, and her own children were in school anyway, so it seemed like a better idea to offer only the room. By not including board with the room, the price could lower and hopefully attract someone immediately.
After revising the ad several times she ended up with:
"Private room with access to private bathroom in clean, quiet home. Tenant must also be clean, quiet, and responsible. Asking $300 per month rent. Tenant is responsible for meals. Please call..."
