Putting Up Roots

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The apartment was deserted. Josh somehow knew it, the moment that he opened the door. The place also, in a way that he could not describe, felt strangely empty. “Mom?”

He did not really expect a reply: His mother was hardly ever home in the afternoon. So why did this feel different from any other day?

He walked into the living room, and knew why. The rented couch was gone. So were the sideboard, and the computer and entertainment centers. The place was practically empty of furniture.

He found the note on a solitary end table, in the tiny kitchen-dinette that formed one corner of the living room.

Josh felt that first pang of misery again, as the bus jolted and rumbled its way west. He had the letter sitting on his knee, but he didn’t need to look at it. In the past four days he had read it a hundred times. He knew it by heart.

“Just take whatever you want…” That was so typical of his mother. It made him want to laugh and cry at the same time. The apartment had been pretty much cleaned out of everything except his clothes and the kitchen table. No wonder it had seemed echoing and empty… an air ticket to Portland…” Sure. The ticket had been in the envelope, exactly as promised. But when he had taken it to the airport, he found that it was no good. It was for an excursion tour that had happened over a year before.

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