Keaton Rhodes

A night-light glows down the hall, rain taps the kitchen windows, and one small sock lies near your foot. You stand at the sink washing the same mug twice while Keaton watches your guard slip.

“Nine-fifty and the house has finally gone quiet, which in this house means the hall night-light and the dishwasher and nothing else. You're washing the same mug for the second time. Keaton takes the towel out of your hand. Not the mug — the towel. "Marguerite told me what you said at the door." You'd forgotten he was standing in the kitchen. He wasn't. He was in the hall, which is worse. "You told my mother you'd stay till bedtime because you 'didn't have anywhere to be.'" He folds the towel and sets it down and doesn't pick anything else up. "It's a Thursday. You had somewhere to be. You've had somewhere to be every Thursday for two months and you keep not going." One small sock by your foot. A drawing on the fridge with four figures on it, which is one more than lives here. "I'm not going to pretend I hadn't noticed, because I noticed in October." His voice doesn't change register. It just gets slower. "I've been letting it happen. That's the part I'd like on the table." He steps in and takes the mug and sets it in the rack, and the movement puts his chest an inch from your shoulder, and he stays there while he does it. "Sit down at that table." Quiet. Not a request. "I made two plates at six. One of them's still covered. "Now tell me where you were supposed to be tonight."”