If Everyone Cared [Sean]

[L.C. Milliner]

She liked the house. She’d give him that.

Standing in front of Sean’s house with a bag over her shoulder, L.C. crossed her arms and nodded at it with what one would call grudging appreciation. For a school official, he must’ve made a decent salary. This brought the question to mind, where was it coming from? Did some students pay tuition? Or did the government pay for Hammel? She raised an eyebrow. Maybe Sean wasn’t paying taxes. She could imagine him molding the minds of IRS agents into whatever he wanted them to think.

She took stock of herself. She had ten bucks in her pocket, mostly in quarters. She had one pair of shoes, which were snug on her feet. The bottoms of the soles flashed with gray tape from accidents she had committed in the past. (Shooting spikes from your feet damaged your shoes. Common sense to most. L.C., not so much.) Four pairs of socks. Three pairs of jeans. Four shirts, many of which had holes in the sleeves. One had a hole in the middle of the back. She hadn’t worn a hat today, surprisingly. She was starting to grow out of them, in a figurative way. She didn’t like them all that much anymore.

Biting her lip, she looked at the ground beneath her feet and up to the house again. Part of her wanted to go inside right away, the other part of her felt the urge to run away. She felt uncomfortable in houses. She always had. Houses were filled with expensive furniture and wallpaper and paint and other things she could break. They were filled with tiny things she slipped into her pocket without even realizing it. She was invited into houses as a kid and ushered out as fast as she came. The longest time she had spent in a house? Two hours.

She had never spent the night in a real house.

That fact alone terrified her. She had never been on the second floor of a house. She had never slept in a big room. She had never eaten dinner on a table that wasn’t folded away later. She never cooked in a kitchen that was divided from the living room. She had never lived like a real kid. The idea of trying, in short, terrified her. She gulped and shut the door to Sean’s van shakily, resulting in a click. Regaining her temper for a second, she opened the half closed door and slammed it shut again, so it shut properly. She looked to Sean, then to the house, and gulped once more. Her throat was dry. What if she broke something? Did he have a backyard? Oh god, did he have a garden and a pond with fish in it? What if she managed to break it and killed the poor fish? Jesus, she was going to be a walking time bomb!

“Maybe I could stay in the garage. I could sleep in the van. In the garage.” The teenager looked almost hopeful, but there was still a part of her that, with a childlike curiosity, wanted to see what a real house was like. Would she get a simple single bed like she had all her life, or would it be a big queen sized mattress she could simply fall on? Would she have her own bathroom with an actual bathtub? Or was it a simple standing shower that she had always used? Did her room have curtains or blinds?

‘No, Lyra. You will not obsess about curtains. You are in the garage.’ She thought the same thing five times, decisively.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean had hashed the matter out before leaving work that day; those in positions to be so hadn’t been thrilled but had conceded his point – particularly when he pointed out that this wasn’t as uncommon as they thought it was and Claude said that they would get on finding her a more suitable living arrangement so that this didn’t become necessary for more than a night or two. That finished, Sean met the girl as agreed at his office, and after doing a quick inventory to make sure that she had everything she needed, they made the trip to his house. Traffic was minimal, as it usually was in this small town, and since he always left the school after rush hour – or what constituted rush hour in Pilot Ridge – had ended, he never got caught in the jams.

He needed to do something about the van situation. The damage to his car had been more extensive than had been originally assumed, and he had simply gotten into the habit of driving the hulking vehicle, but he needed to switch back to his car sooner or later. But today wasn’t the day to do it, and in the end, that was for the best; he thought that the van might have put L.C. at ease while they drove.

The psychiatrist tried not to eavesdrop on her thoughts, and he didn’t comment on those that he did overhear. Her belief in the strength of his abilities was confidence-inspiring even if she was also under the impression that he completely lacked a moral compass when it came to his own financial gain. Of course he paid taxes; he valued social services too much to evade paying his fair share. His house had always been a double-edged sword, a point of both pride and embarrassment. It was too large for him – although perfect for its original purpose, for the family he had never had – and he’d paid it off so quickly because that was what happened when one earned a psychiatrist’s pay, and one was the son of a well-to-do doctor.

Although he wouldn’t comment directly on her thoughts, he also didn’t want her to continue down her path of destructive “what if?” scenarios. He was sure that she wouldn’t destroy any of his decorative items, and he assumed that she had the good sense not to make holes in his furniture. “You’re not sleeping in my van,” he told herwith finality. He had invited her to stay with him because she didn’t feel welcome in her room; he wouldn’t compound that by letting her feel that she was unwelcome in his house. “I have a guest room you can use. Clean sheets and towels, the whole works.”

With that, he picked up his brief case and started for the front door. As he unlocked it, he asked, “Do you like chicken? We’ll need to figure out supper.”

[L.C. Milliner]

L.C. had been comforted by the van, surprisingly. She liked large vehicles, they made her feel safe. Older vehicles were the same way. It smelled nice and it was comfortable, a duo that lulled her into a decent sense of security for the ride home. Coupled with Sean’s driving, which wasn’t in a jerky, stopping on a dime style, she had almost fallen asleep on the ride, something she was prone to do as a child. She remembered when James had picked her up, she had fallen asleep right after he had taken her to dinner, where she had devoured everything placed in front of her with reckless abandon.

The teen attempted to keep a calm face on, but her eyes darted everywhere, from the bay window and turret on the second floor to the landscaping surrounding her- tiny trees and pretty bushes, some of which were already stripped barren by the autumn. She scratched the back of her leg with the top of her foot, a common nervous habit, and forced herself to sound unexcited about a guest room. “Oh. Cool.” she shrugged like any normal teenager would, but she rocked back on her feet and then forward to her toes, stepping forward only after he had picked up his briefcase and gone ahead. She failed to suppress a smile, although she managed not to break out into a childish grin. She reminded herself that powers were off limits here. No spikes whatsoever were allowed on the premise. “Wait, towels? I get my own bathroom?” She realized this halfway up the walkway, eyes widening to the size of tea saucers. It was probably only a small bathroom with a shower sink and toilet. Like one she had seen on a Sims game. She shouldn’t be so impressed, but she was. She had shared a bathroom her whole life, with her Mother and her brother and then with a bunch of teenagers that alternated between walking in on her and kicking the door down. (Sometimes literally.)

Dinner. She calmed herself. She knew her way around meals. She could navigate this, just like she did with her Mother. “Anything’s fine. Chicken or cheeseburgers are okay, I just don’t like mustard or onions or mayo. Any restaurant is okay either. Oh, and I’ll drink any soft drink. Mountain Dew if they have it.” She smiled, thinking she had figured that out very well. After all, he couldn’t possibly plan on cooking for her. Cooking meals, especially one with meat, was only for special occasions. If cooking was required, because her Mother was sick or it was Saturday (scrounge/date night) it was normally macaroni and cheese or TV dinners made in the microwave. Usually she would just make a sandwich with cold cuts and watch TV with her brother. “…I like Wendy’s.” She offered after a pause, smile faltering a little. Was she too demanding? Should she not have said all that? Was she too picky with her food? She didn’t offend him, did she?

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Wendy’s - that wasn’t happening. Although Sean’s eating habits were nothing to use by way of example – his sweet tooth was notorious and perhaps he liked Chinese takeout a bit too much – he was also too old to make a habit of eating from fast food restaurants. Besides, he could cook for himself and the results were usually better and healthier as well. Of course, he wouldn’t have raised her on fast food, if he was her guardian, but that was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of how his child-rearing beliefs differed from her mother’s. “How does chicken parm sound?” It was a fair compromise, since it involved breaded chicken, but didn’t involve fast food. “I’ll make a pot of angel hair too. And a salad.” It would only take a half hour or so to put together.

“I have orange juice, iced tea, and ginger ale.” As she was only eighteen, the contents of his liquor cabinet were off-limits, and accordingly, the psychiatrist would forgo his usual glass of wine that he had with supper. “There should also be a carton of cider in the fridge, if you’d like to have some of that. And there’s always water. I don’t keep soft drinks.” He found them useful only for diluting scotch, and as he drank straight liquor when he didn’t have to drive, he had no reason to keep them if not for parties. He didn’t have a party on the horizon.

Once they were inside his house, Sean set his briefcase down in the corridor beside his umbrella stand; he didn’t have paperwork to review tonight, and thus it could simply remain there until the morning. All of his confidential files were either back in his office or locked up in his study wall safe at home; he didn’t have to worry about those with a house guest.

“The den is the next room over and there’s a television in there, if you want to watch something while I make supper. I don’t know how many of my DVDs you’d be interested in, but I have cable so I’m sure you can find something to watch.” The psychiatrist removed his jacket and hung it on the peg by the door, and then reached out to take hers. “I’m afraid the pool table and foosball tables aren’t much fun alone, so I can’t recommend them as pre-supper entertainment.” Unfortunately, because he lived alone, there wasn’t much in the way of teenage entertainment in the psychiatrist’s house.

After hanging the jackets, he removed his shoes and set them by the door and transferred to slippers. It was a peculiar habit, one a bit too reminiscent of the 1950s but he’d absorbed the habit from his father all those years ago.

[L.C. Milliner]

As Sean ignored her spiel about what fast food she liked and what she didn’t, L.C.’s face turned a bright shade of red and she resigned herself to looking at her shoes. Just when she thought she had something figured out everything suddenly turned around. His suggestion of cooking for her made her tense and she bit her lip. She mumbled her compliance while on the inside she chastised herself. Of course Sean would cook, it was only natural. He wasn’t her Mother, not even remotely close. He was a grown man who could easily whip up whatever food he wanted. Sean wasn’t a drunk or addicted to cigarettes or had a habit of disappearing off with random beaus just before dinner. (At least, she hoped not, or else she would lose all faith in her psychiatrist.)

“Iced tea would be nice.” L.C. muttered as they entered, watching him sit his briefcase down and remove his jacket. She sloughed her own jacket off and folded it over her arm, unsure of where to take it or put it. She nodded at his description of what she could do and she almost asked if he could help him cook. She decided against it at the last second and kept her mouth shut. She’d probably only get in the way and would end up making something burn. So she nodded and slipped her shoes off as she watched him take his off, silent as she stood in the doorway of his home. She didn’t raise an eyebrow at the slippers, mostly because she thought it was a much better custom to keep slippers by the door rather than, say, a can of beer.

She put her jacket on a peg next to Sean’s, but kept her bag on her back, since he hadn’t shown her to her room yet. The girl padded in her socks to the den, looking around like a child in a museum, turning even as she stepped. It was a very nice house, even on the inside. She sat her bag on the couch and went over to the TV, hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans as she looked for a movie. She couldn’t find anything she wanted to watch, but then again she had never heard of any of the titles, save for a few blurbs of commercials on T.V.’s she didn’t pay attention to.

In the end, she sat on the couch and channel surfed, searching through channels and ending up switching between the crude humor of ‘Family Guy’ and the curiosity surrounding the show called ‘American Pickers’ on some history channel that apparently had a loose definition of history. She pulled her knees to her chest and watched TV for about half an hour, but in the end she turned the TV off, stood, left her bag on the couch, and padded around the first floor until she managed to find the kitchen.

“I was never a big T.V. kid.” She announced, forgoing any form of ‘hello’. “Can I just sit and watch you cook and talk to you or something? I’m alone enough already. She stood awkwardly in the kitchen, one hand on the doorframe. If one looked at her and imagined her aged down ten years, this pose would be her most natural. One hand on the doorway to give her leverage for a quick run out, halfway in the door to keep her out of the way, but just barely, eyes hopeful, but mouth set grim because hope only went so far. Her arm hung at her side, not limp, but tense. It was an old habit; it was ready to swing into action if something was thrown her way. She realized nothing would be thrown and relaxed her arm, shoving her hand in her pocket instead. She stood there, between one room and the next, straddling the line, just as she had always done.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“Iced tea it is,” Sean promised her, before they went their separate ways. Wearing his slippers and bereft of his jacket and tie, the psychiatrist made his way to the kitchen to begin cooking. After washing his hands, he set the table for two. That in itself was peculiar, as he usually ate alone. What company he had was usually Josh, and the other man would sit in the kitchen and talk about his day or tease him about this or that before supper was ready and they settled in to eat.

This was different. While L.C. was here, he had to maintain his Hammel persona, maintain the necessary boundaries, and that, too, was peculiar. At least she was watching television, which would hopefully give her a bit of a break from the trauma of the rest of the day.

He filled the pasta pot with water and then set it on the stove to boil. Then he took down the salt and took the butter out of the refrigerator, and took a box of angel hair out of the pantry as promised. He had to bread the chicken breasts he’d been keeping, and so he took out the breadcrumbs and the chicken. He also needed the mozzarella, the bread crumbs, the oil, and the tomato sauce. He put on NPR while he gathered the rest of the ingredients and then resumed cooking.

The chicken was breaded and on its way to the oven when L.C. arrived in the kitchen. He set the timer and looked over at her, not having expected her to take any interest in his goings on. But as she spoke, he turned down the radio so that he could more easily hear her. So she was lonely. He couldn’t fault her for that, but he had been concerned about her not being entertained enough. He gestured with his un-mitted hand at one of the kitchen chairs. “Make yourself comfortable. I’m sorry that my cooking isn’t more interesting.”

He took a glass down from the cupboard and then crossed to the refrigerator to pull out the iced tea. “Do you take ice in your drinks?”

[L.C. Milliner]

L.C. went where she was directed and sat, pulling up her feet so she was cross-legged in her chair. She scratched at her scalp and rested the side of her face on the palm of her hand, watching Sean in silence as he cooked. The humming of voices on NPR in the background made for some nice ambience- she felt like she was right at home. “It’s not that boring. I saw worse on T.V.” She assured him, wishing he would ask her to help or something. She was a working kid. Whenever her mother cooked, L.C. did most of the work during her Mother’s frequent smoking breaks, measuring milk, watching the inside of the oven because sometimes the timer was off, and stirring things like pasta or sauce. She was the master of stirring the powdered cheese into mac & cheese. Her brother had told her so whenever they made it.

“Huh? Oh. Just a little.” She said, motioning with her index finger and thumb that ‘a little’ was about half an inch. “I’m not big on ice.” Chalk it up to Magda- she had taught little Lyra that ice in drinks was just a way to get less of already watered-down soda. People in the carnival did it all the time, filling cups three fourths of the way full with shredded ice. Leave it out in the sun too long and what you got was a concoction of something that was eight-tenths water and two-tenths a bad aftertaste. Whether it was from force of habit, or from personal taste, L.C. still did not like ice in her beverages. Iced tea was an exception- it was ‘iced tea’. Not having any ice in it would defeat the purpose.

The blonde sat in silence for a bit, relishing the quiet between them for a moment. It was just the hum of the radio and the lights, and she didn’t mind it, really. She wasn’t much of a talkative person, but she still felt odd, sitting there and doing nothing. “I can set the table.” She offered, trying to be a polite guest. Despite being raised in questionable conditions, she knew how to do a correct table setting. Needless to say, it surprised a lot of people. Whenever her mother had a date over, Lyra was put in charge of vacuuming, dusting, and setting the table- two chores her mother and brother hated, the third made strictly to busy her because as a young child she was always very precise about things. Her work with a vacuum was questionable, but when it came to table setting, she knew where everything went, even when it came to folding napkins. At the moment, she wanted to help- subconsciously, it was to show her appreciation, on the surface it was because she hated being idle- so she stood and moved to the island in the center of the kitchen area, ready to be directed to a cabinet where the dishes were laid.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean had to assume that she was lying to be polite. Very little of what he did when cooking could be described as anything but “boring.” Since he didn’t cook anything fancy and he didn’t narrate the process, the Food Network was several notches more interesting, even to people who weren’t interested in the process by which food became edible. Otherwise, she had accidentally stumbled upon the network whose only programming consisted of watching paint dry and watching grass grow. “What were you watching?” He inquired, to let her take a stab at conversation, one where she had control over the flow of information.

The psychiatrist then nodded slightly in comprehension at her description of how much ice she wanted, and he pressed the glass against the panel on the refrigerator which produced ice. He kept the glass there for only an instant, long enough to fill it with the little bit she had described, and then he pulled it away, filled the rest with iced tea, and brought the glass over to her at the table. “Here you are.” Not having experienced her upbringing, he rather liked ice in any beverage that could accommodate it, most forms of liquor excluded. He would even drink iced coffee in the summer.

Setting the table was the task he usually assigned to Josh to make his friend feel useful when he came over for supper. It was simple, and there was no way that the kitchen could be set ablaze from cutlery. But his friend also knew where all of the dishes and silverware were kept. Furthermore, Josh was a grown man and he didn’t have to worry about power imbalance or about making his friend feel like he had to earn his keep. L.C. was here under different circumstances. Yet, he could hear her thoughts about wanting to help, and so he gestured at the drawers where the silverware was kept with his large plastic pasta spork. “Silverware is in there, and the china is up top,” he pointed at a cupboard nearby.

He then returned his attention to the pasta pot, where the water had begun to boil. Adding a bit of salt, he then tore open the angel hair box and ripped handfuls of the pasta in twain before dumping the contents into the pot to soften. He stirred the noodles around, letting them curl slowly, and he checked the wall clock to get a sense of time. "Do you want me to change the radio station?"