the forgotten stranger

When a strange man came to the door, a duffel bag under his arm, I was reluctant to open it.

‘Hi,’ he said, ‘you must be Lucy.’ He outstretched his hand as I looked blankly at him. ‘I’m Sean!’

I looked at this ‘Sean’ up and down and stared at his outstretched hand. I reluctantly shook it but didn’t know what he was doing standing in my front porch or how he knew my name. I’m writing a horror at the minute and ‘the phone call is coming from inside the house!’ crept to mind in an eery, distorted voice.

‘How can I help you?’ I asked, trying to be diplomatic and not frighten the guy off. I knew the alarm was playing up last week so maybe he was there to fix that.

‘I’m your new tenant!’ he said and smiled.

My jaw hit the floor. Not only did I not know there was someone moving in today, I also didn’t know that we had a room up for rent.

‘Would you mind if I just rang my mother real quick?’ I asked him as he placed the heavy duffle bag on the cold, grey tiles of the front porch. He was sizing up the entryway as I pushed the speed dial button on my phone to connect me to my mother. I smiled at Sean as I put my phone to my ear and mouthed the words ‘one minute’ and held up my index finger of my left hand as the call connected.

‘Hi lovey I’m out to lunch,’ she said nonchalantly, ‘what’s wrong?’

‘Em…’ I began to dance around the subject, ‘there is a guy here who says he is the new tenant,’ I paused for dramatic effect as she sounded like she was choking on something. ‘I didn’t even know we were thinking of getting a tenant!’ I said through gritted teeth trying to keep a smile for the guy standing patiently.

‘Oh shit!’ she said on the other end of the phone, ‘he’s not supposed to be coming until Wednesday!’

‘Today is Wednesday!’

‘Oh shit!’ she repeated. ‘Look, just bring him in and give him a cup of tea and a tour of the house and I’ll be home in an hour.’

‘Why can’t you come home now?’

‘Me and the girls are just discussing our trip. It needs to be booked by tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow Thursday or tomorrow Wednesday?’ I asked her.

‘Eh…’ she struggled to find an answer.

I heard her converse with her friends who have been planning this trip for over six years. They were a tight bunch who have all been putting away €20 a month because all of their 60^th birthdays occurred within a two-year period. With covid they weren’t able to do it last year and now they have decided June was a good month for the blessed event.

‘Mom!’ I whispered in a chastising tone down the phone.

‘Just bring him in and show him around will you please?’ she asked with a stern voice as if I had done something wrong, ‘I’ll be home in an hour!’ and she hung up.

With my back turned to the guy, I mouthed expletives silently at the phone.  When I turned around, I looked perfectly poised and allowed Sean entry to the house.

‘Sorry,’ I said to him and began to explain, ‘she forgot to tell me you were coming today.’ In my mind I thought ‘or at all!!’

‘No worries!’ he smiled and picked up his heavy black duffel bag. Part of me expected for it to move and a concealed body emerge, but no.

‘You can leave that there,’ I instructed him gesticulating towards the floor beside the telephone table. I showed him the kitchen and living room.

It would have to be today that my brother was at his councillor in town so ringing him would be a bust. I still couldn’t believe she forgot or omitted to tell me that we were getting a tenant. Had I known in advance I would have had the time to process it more quickly.

I had no problem showing him downstairs but that was my limit. I showed him my brothers lair, the place where he was recuperating from long covid.

‘He isn’t able to make it up the stairs most days,’ I offered and immediately regretted it. I should have told Sean that my brother is very protective and would come running up the stairs if he heard a strange noise, but the truth was out there now.

Quickly trying to change the subject, I asked the man of yet few words if he wanted a cup of tea.

‘Yes please,’ he answered and I turned him around so we went back into the kitchen.

As I stood facing the kettle, in my mind I was thinking, ‘she actually forgot to tell me we were getting a tenant! How can you forget something as big as that?’ I was fuming.

‘How do you like your tea?’ I asked the stranger sitting in my spot at the table.

‘Any way at all is grand!’ he said with a heavy cork accent.

I made both tea’s the same and offered him some sugar.

‘No thanks, I’m sweet enough!’ he chuckled. I joined in still thinking, ‘how could she have forgotten?’

‘You weren’t expecting me then?’ he asked as he carefully dipped one of the custard creams I scattered on a plate into his tea.

‘No,’ I answered, ‘no she didn’t tell me! Is it that obvious?’

He chuckled. ‘Well don’t mind me,’ he started, ‘I’m doing my masters in trinity and have a couple of jobs to help pay for it so I’ll hardly be here.’

I closed my eyes for a second too long as I said to myself, ‘oh thank god!’

‘Do you work yourself Lucy?’ he asked.

I looked down at myself. I was wearing pyjama bottoms, an old t-shirt, a jumper and a dressing gown, all of which were dirty. I knew I had to say something so I told him that I was a writer and work from home.

‘Is there anything you have written that I might have seen?’

‘I’m actually editing my first novel.’

‘Oh cool,’ he nodded. ‘What’s it about?’

‘Well it’s a horror, so……’ I trailed off.

‘Oh I love a good horror!’ he smiled showing his teeth that were obviously helped along by an orthodontist.

I began to feel eery again and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

‘I personally don’t like horrors, but it’s the only genre where you get to be free and kill the monstrous bastards from your nightmares in any way imaginable.’ Unbeknownst to myself I smiled sadistically when I said that.  

Sean went to put the cup to his lips but replaced it onto the table instead. I was pretty sure I saw alarm bells going off in his eyes.

Thankfully my mothers key made contact with the lock in the front door and she began apologising before she even entered the house. She walked into the kitchen with a bag of groceries and winked at me.

‘Heya Sean, it’s nice to see you again!’

I looked blankly at a woman I thought I knew. They had met before? I mean yes I have mental health difficulties meaning I overthink things and process my emotions differently but that is no excuse to just ‘forget’ to tell your daughter that there is going to be a strange man sharing the bathroom for a while. How can you just ‘forget’ that you got a tenant?

‘Did Lucy show you your room?’ she asked as she placed the milk in the door of the fridge.

‘Not yet, no.’ He smiled at me. It was the type of smile that gave me the impression that he felt sorry for me. I didn’t know what he was sorry about. If there was anyone to blame here it’s my mother!

‘C’mon lovey and I’ll show you your room.’ She said beckoning him to follow her.

He groaned as he picked up the heavy bag in the hall and could hear them through the ceiling. The floorboards creaked as she showed him the now not so spare room and the bathroom. I also heard the hot press opening and guessed she was showing him where the extra bedding was.

As the top step of the stairs squeaked, I knew someone was coming down. I stayed sitting at the kitchen table as my mom popped her head inside the door trying to gauge how mad I was. From 1% – 100%, I’d guess 250%. I was so annoyed that I’d swear there was steam coming out of my ears.

As her body joined her head in the room, she had a look on her. I think it was a look of remorse.

‘Go on,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Lay it into me!’ she sat on the chair next to the window.

I thought about asking when she was going to share with me that we were so strapped for cash that we needed a lodger but I was so annoyed that she ‘forgot’ to tell me that I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

‘Mom, when were you going to tell me. You know that in the family meeting with Dr Gibbons three weeks ago that I don’t like things to just happen, that I need time to process them happening!’ She nodded. ‘You promised that day that there would be no more surprises. I’m only out of hospital from a six-month stint. Two weeks I’ve been home…. two weeks, and I find out about a lodger when he’s already here? C’mon…. you can’t be serious!’

‘I know love and I’m sorry but we thought what with the college year starting that we would be able to rent out the room and help some poor guy out as well as making money at the same time.’

‘We?’ I put my elbows on the table and buried my face in my hands.

‘Well we had to do it over the internet so Kevin helped me.’

‘Excuse me?’ I asked with a furrowed brow. ‘Kevin knew!’

‘You know I’m no good at technology!’

‘So you knew, and Kevin knew, and Sean knew, but I didn’t.’ I said calmly now pacing the room trying to get my head around the betrayal.

‘Kevin thought you might be against it and we decided between us to not tell you until we knew it was actually happening so as not to worry you in case it didn’t.’

‘Mom, there is a strange man upstairs and I’m expected to share a bathroom with him. At what point were you planning to tell me that tiny issue?’ I squeezed my thumb and forefinger together and looked at the gap through my right eye.

‘I know, I know, but it o……’

‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to stop you there mom.’ I put up my index finger in the air, ‘when did you know?’ I simply asked.

‘Last week,’ my mother grimaced.

‘Didn’t you take anything from the family meeting three weeks ago?’

‘Yes, bu……..’

‘And didn’t Dr Gibbons inform you that it takes me longer than others to get my head around something?’

‘Yea bu……’

‘So you got nothing out of that two-hour meeting then!’

‘I did lovey but I……’

‘You what mother. Were you going to tell me at all?’

Mom looked at her half-made jigsaw and went quiet for a minute.

‘I honestly thought Dr Gibbons would ask the hospital for an extension of your cover. You were and are in no fit state to be home.’

I nodded encouraging her to continue.

‘Both Kevin and myself already had Sean picked out and had offered him the room before that meeting.’

‘So why not tell me there, in front of my doctor no less, so I could wrap my head around it?’

‘Honestly?’

‘Yes honestly!’

‘I genuinely forgot! It had slipped my mind what with you coming home and Kevin with long covid in and out to appointments, topped off with your grandmother needing to be cared for that I got my days mixed up and I forgot! There! I’m human!’

I could see tears forming in her eyes as she finished her little speech. Its hard for me to try to remember that my mother is under a severe amount of stress. Her 93-year-old mother taking up ten days a month in the form of two trips to Waterford. Me and my antics over the summer and her fear that I will try to take my own life again. Kevin, crumbling beneath us with both his mental and physical state combined eroding his drive for life. Then my bastard of a father not giving as much money as he should be giving. It must be hard!

I thought for a minute and bowed my head nodding. There was a gentle knock on the door. It was Sean. He came into the room and handed my mother a jigsaw and me a box of milk tray and had some sort of comic book swag for Kevin.

‘I just thought these might break the ice!’ he said in his baritone voice.

I looked him up and down graciously taking the chocolates and smiled. Mom went over and gave him a hug. I extended my hand and finally, after a couple of hours passing, we said hello.