The day was brutally hot, but Ronan would rather be anywhere but inside. He had left as the sun rose and had only returned once to drop off the day's purchases thus far: a blanket, kerosene and coal, vinegar, soap, baking soda, and a pot to replace the rusted one in the kitchen.

Now, he scanned the day market. Some of the faces had changed, but the energy was the same. Fresh despite the soot in the air and lively despite the circles beneath the vendors' eyes. A group of kids chased down the street, nearly toppling a graying woman's potato stand and speeding off as she chastised them. Ronan averted his eyes.

His back ached with every step. He had spent the night before sprawled out on the living room floor, staring at the dust floating above his head until he accepted the sleepless night for what it was and blew out his candle. With no way of telling the time – his stolen pocket watch was stuck, it turned out – he had waited in darkness for dawn.

He gratefully added onto the day's list that he would need that watch repaired.

Pickings were slim so late in the morning, but Ronan didn't plan on buying much. He traipsed between dwindling stacks of salted meat and fishermen selling leftover catches out of buckets and scrawny fowls tied in threes by the legs. He eyed bottom-of-the-basket cabbages, peas, carrots, and artichokes, and his stomach grumbled at the thought of stew.

He walked past it all to the potato stand. Some potatoes and some bread and some lard – maybe tea, too. That should be enough.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd done this by himself. He had always perused markets in a group. Going alone had seemed a lonely choice when he could have Felix tugging at his arm, dragging him towards cheap books and plays, or Mitch insisting they buy more meat than they could store, or Vito flirting with the older women at their stalls, charming them into offering lower prices but paying them in full regardless.

The potato lady attempted pleasantries as she counted Ronan's coins. Her clothes were shabby and stained, but her hands were clean where they handled Ronan's potatoes. She gave up when all she received in return was a stilted smile, and Ronan mused that he had been right. It was lonely.

He was hungry, thirsty, and finally tired by the time he returned, but he only stayed long enough to set his haul in the kitchen. He recalled the murky directions he'd gotten from a man at the market and set off toward what he hoped was a watchmaker's.

As the journey led him to the edges of the city and further still, he started to doubt it. Gravel roads became dirt paths, and the crowded city blocks gave way to small, far-spread houses. You'll know you're there when you see a redheaded bear, the man had said, which hadn't inspired much confidence.

Ronan stared blankly at the front door of a farmhouse, where a wobbly outline of a bear had been scratched into the wood. The door must have once been red, but the paint had chipped away so badly that only one sizable chunk remained, vaguely centered around the top of the bear's head.

When Ronan looked past the house and squinted through the pines framing it, he could see several large animals grazing on a field. He had asked for a watchmaker, and the man had led him to a farm.

If there had been nothing to avoid back at the rowhouse, Ronan would've turned back. As it happened, he was dead-set on avoiding the rowhouse as a whole. He knocked on the bear's face.

"Come in!" a man's voice shouted from within. Ronan heard a clatter, a curse, and a series of rushed footsteps as he tentatively opened the door. The space inside had obviously been well-loved and well lived-in; dents in earthy knit cushions and childhood drawings etched into floorboards and books tipped over on the kitchen table when Ronan peered around the corner. A red-haired man with bright blue eyes approached from a doorway to Ronan's right, already smiling his way. "Good afternoon! Say, I don't think we've met. First visit?"

Ronan nodded. This man was confusing to look at. He was obviously a farmer – he wore a smock and trousers crusted with mud at the ankles, and he had the stretched, overwhelmingly freckled sort of skin that had clearly spent a lifetime in the sun. But a pencil poked haphazardly from the cuff of his sleeve, and he held in one hand a magnifying glass and sheet of paper covered in sketches – forgotten, apparently, as he reached toward Ronan for a handshake, only to drop his arm to his side with a sheepish chuckle.

"It's a pleasure. Amos Abrams," the man said, offering his other hand. "What can I do for you?"

Ronan rummaged in his coat and held out the pocket watch. Amos raised sun-bleached brows at the sheen. "It's stuck at 9:13. Can you fix it?"

Amos laughed good-naturedly, taking the watch and inspecting it between his fingers. "Wouldn't be too good at my craft if I couldn't, would I? You're welcome to wait here while I take a look."

Ronan looked around at wooden walls and ancient furniture and signs of hasty attempts at cleaning – streaks on the windows, piles of dust pushed beneath chairs like there hadn't been enough time left in the day to dispose of them. Looking at this contradiction of a man, Ronan believed it.

"Would it be alright if I watched you work?"

Ronan's ears went red. He pressed his lips tight as if that might somehow reel the question back in. "Sorry," he said immediately. "I don't know why I said that."

Amos flicked the hand with the magnifying glass. "If you'd be more comfortable that way, it's no problem."

"That's not it." Ronan thought back to being young and frustrated, glaring down at the floor whenever clients had come to the locksmith for help only to doubt his work. The old man had always dismissed it with a wave and a patient smile and a glance Ronan's way that said, There's no use being so easily offended.

That was it.

This man was about twenty years younger and at least a foot taller. But the gray patches in his beard and the kind lines at the corners of his eyes– his calloused fingertips and knobbly, overworked knuckles and the pencil in his sleeve; Amos reminded him of Mr. Hughes.

"Interest in watchmaking, then?"

Ronan met curious, almost-familiar eyes and fought the urge to shrink under the attention. "I haven't ever considered it, but . . . I once studied under a locksmith."

"Ah," said Amos, curiosity turning to intrigue. "I get locks here from time to time."

"You're a locksmith as well?"

Amos flicked his magnifying glass again. "Nothin' of the sort, my boy. But there ain't too many places to get your gear fixed outside the city, and when you've got folks who trust you to help them, you sorta learn to be a jack of all trades."

Drawing on a memory he hadn't realized he had, Ronan muttered, "Master of one."

Amos' brows drew together. "Ah, have I already said that today? Kids're always on me for repeating myself."

"No, it's . . ." Ronan felt himself smile, just barely, picturing the old locksmith's face. "Heard it somewhere before."

Ronan spent the next two hours watching as Amos removed the back of the watch and dis- and reassembled the mechanism inside – the movement, Ronan learned through Amos' commentary. He almost felt bad for distracting him, but Amos seemed happy to describe his work, and there was an unexpected comfort that came from sitting across an old work table and trying to absorb all he could from what he heard and saw. Amos took the movement apart piece by tiny piece and checked each for damage, but ultimately, all it needed was to be cleaned and oiled and put back together. Ronan bit his tongue on his questions until Amos said, as if he could tell, "Feel free to ask if somethin' confuses you."

And when the job was done, he stopped before the front door and asked Ronan, "Would you be interested in learnin' the trade?"

The watch ticked in Ronan's palm. His surprise must've shown on his face, because Amos didn't wait for a response before explaining, "Been a little short-handed lately, between the shop and the farm, and my kids keep tellin' me I should hire someone, and–"

"Yes."

Amos blinked. "That fast?"

"I need work," said Ronan. "And I like what you do. I swear I learn fast."

Amos looked like he was holding back a laugh. "Well– alright, then. Ever work a farm before?"

Ronan had not, and he wasn't fond of the idea of wading through cow shit, but he knew better than to act the choosy beggar. "I learn very fast."

This time, Amos laughed openly. "Good man. How about you come in sometime, and we'll test the waters?"

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Ronan had hoped the errand would carry him until evening, but the sun was still high by the time he returned. He took his time filling the new pot at the pump, but a trip down the street could only take him so long, and setting the water over heat was even faster. There was nothing left to stall him, except maybe to eat. But as if in preparation, his appetite had slipped away in the moments leading up to this one, where he stopped and acknowledged that he stood in a house that hadn't been lived in since his mother died.

He started with the living room.

'Living room' was perhaps a generous term. The staircase took up half the lower level, and there was no wall suggesting separate rooms. But the hearth and oven were against the back wall and the sofa against the front, so Ronan had always thought of them as kitchen and living room, respectively.

He wrapped a cloth around a broom-head, the way his mother always had, and lifted it to the ceiling to scrape at the thick layers of cobwebs.

Wendy had been obsessed with cleaning when she was alive.

He had often come home to her sweeping – focused and efficient when she was sober, swaying to a hummed tune when she wasn't. Not another step in those shoes, she would say, and he would scrunch his nose at the smell of vinegar and varnish. Once, when Ronan was little, he'd been sick all over the rug by the hearth. He had gone sniveling to his mother, and she had kissed his forehead and promised it was alright and rocked with him until he felt better. But he had watched through the window for the next half-hour as she'd scrubbed at the stain with tear-brimmed eyes until it was gone.

With her mind in tatters, her earnings slight, and her reputation beyond repair, the state of her house had been the one thing Wendy could control.

Scrubbing grime from the window with a cloth soaked in vinegar-water, Ronan wondered if that had been all, or if she had been holding onto hope that Ronan's father would someday come knocking on the door. Vernon had been the one to pay for the house, after all, though Ronan didn't know if that had been a gift while they were together or a muzzle after they fell apart.

Dust hugged everything. The floors, the shelves, the steps. The small table between kitchen and living room and the wooden chair jammed into the corner and the mantel above the oven. Ronan dusted and swept and wiped, opened the window and tried it all again, dragged the sofa outside and scrubbed vigorously with a bristly brush, and still there was more. It burned his eyes and scratched his throat. Wendy would have sobbed if she saw it.

Ronan sat heavily in front of the sofa.

Even in those final weeks when she could hardly sit up in bed, as long as she'd still had a voice, she had asked every day if he was keeping the place tidy. He had lied to her again and again; it was enough work trying to keep her alive. But he had found it comforting, too, because she might have been unrecognizable at her weakest, but he had known that stern tone of voice well.

He owed it to her now to make up for the lies – and maybe, while he was at it, to finally appreciate her for loving him the way she had – but he couldn't even dust the place.

And he couldn't shake the feeling that she could've loved him more.

He dropped his head into his arms to escape the dust and scolded himself – he would never finish if he kept getting distracted by memories. But now that he'd opened one, they were everywhere. Wendy was everywhere.

Behind him on the sofa, running her fingers through his hair as he leaned back against her lap and practiced reading whatever book Mr. Hughes had last leant him. Slouched in the wooden chair, drunk and half-asleep until Ronan shook her awake and led her to bed. Knelt at the base of the stairs, souring the air as she coughed into a bucket. In front of the hearth, tossing vegetables into a pot on the few days a year she came across enough ingredients to properly indulge – mid-harvest gifts from friends and holiday presents from neighbors. Wendy had been an amazing cook when she got the chance.

Ronan rubbed her from his sight until his eyes were red, then stood and started again.

By the time the space felt livable, the house was lamp-lit and Ronan was bone-tired. He wrapped himself in his blanket and curled onto the not-quite-big-enough sofa and fell asleep facing the staircase, where he knew the dust layer resumed halfway up, untouched.

He still needed to clean the bedroom, but–

Another day.

𓃦𓃦𓃦

Amos loved what he did.

It was the sort of passion that leapt out at Ronan, from the designs scattered over the desk in his workroom and the annotated books crammed onto his shelf and the proud way he showed off a watch he'd created before taking it apart – he described every piece as Ronan took notes in his journal. It was in the way he maintained his tools and his enthusiasm whenever Ronan asked a question and his unconcealed joy at having somebody to share it all with. My kids tried to learn, never had the hands for it, but you . . .

A customer came in partway through the day, a distressed twenty-something in a sewn and re-sewn dress who greeted Amos like an old friend and handed him a locked box in a flurry of Oh, it just won't open and Oh, so many memories trapped inside and Oh, please, Mr. Abrams. Ronan watched through the open office door as Amos consoled her and promised to free her memories in no time at all. She left in a haste – Oh, the kids'll be grumblin' for lunch soon – and Amos set the box before Ronan with an encouraging smile.

"Let's see what you can do, locksmith."

Ronan peered through the keyhole, then at the assortment of tools on Amos' table, and knew this job would be his.

It was far past the shop's closure by the time Amos called it a day, having just finished replacing a broken mainspring in a client's battered old piece. Ronan rose from his seat feeling satisfied – Amos had hired him not halfway through the day – then nearly fell right back down under a wave of dizziness. He stumbled, grabbing onto his chair for balance.

"Alright, son?" Amos hurried around the table to place a hand between Ronan's shoulders. Ronan blinked his eyes tight and opened them to spots in his vision. The smell of cooking had been drifting in from the kitchen for the last hour, and Ronan's stomach ached so badly, he brought a hand to it.

"Fine," he said briskly.

But Amos pried, "When was the last time you ate?"

Ronan opened his mouth to say yesterday, but– he'd been so busy yesterday. His last meal . . . that had been the chicken pie two days before. Felix and Tony had worked on it all afternoon.

Instead of, "I haven't eaten in forty-eight hours," Ronan insisted, "I'm fine."

"You're stayin' for dinner."

"I really shouldn–"

"Food's ready!" A deep voice bellowed from the kitchen.

"We got enough for one extra?" Amos shouted back before Ronan could protest, to a resounding "Always!" that sounded like it came from a whole chorus of men. He shrugged down at Ronan. "Seems it's been decided."

The chorus turned out to be Amos' sons, four broad men with a range of brown skin and coily, ruddy-red hair and legs so long they had to duck beneath the entryway. They talked loudly over a thick soup of turnips, carrots, and pork, and Ronan tried to make himself as small as possible, staring down at his helping.

"Say," Amos spoke up midway through his bowl. "Coulda sworn I had another kid."

"Prob'ly out frolickin' with the horses again," snorted the youngest son – Gid, maybe. Laughter jostled the table.

Ronan noticed that, even if he took up the absent son's seat, there was still one spot open, opposite Amos. There were no women at the table. He wondered if these men knew how lucky they were to have a father like Amos, who could love them in place of a mother.

𓃦𓃦𓃦

Ronan absentmindedly skimmed his notes as he followed Amos' directions (if "walk the fields 'til you find one of my kids" counted as directions). He had hoped for at least a week before he had to do any farmwork, but it was his second day and Amos was tied up with a focus-intensive project and there Ronan was, already sweating as he wandered for any sign of men who, considering their stature, should not have been so difficult to find.

He flipped back too far and landed on a page distinctly lacking in work notes. The top line read: 

Reason #7: They're fake people, all of them, made of glass. Take off the jewelry and you can see right through them, and they hate their spouses and their kids and they don't give a damn about the poor, and they're not all that pretty after all.

Ronan had been thirteen years old and incessantly dramatic (Tony would argue that he still was – the thought made his chest hurt), dragging his pen with a poet's flare. Vito had read over the entry and said, "You sure are good with your words," and he might've been teasing a bit, but he'd meant it, too, back before Ronan had to check over his shoulder for double meanings.

"Gotcha!"

Ronan nearly toppled over as a body flew back into his. He hissed a stream of curses as he regained his balance, pushing away from a girl in men's clothes who had her hands clasped together in front of her.

"Sorry!" The girl stumbled away from him. She transferred her catch – a tiny, white, cat-like creature with six transparent wings and as many legs – into one hand and used the other to pick up Ronan's journal, which lay open in the mud. "Found this booger nippin' at the cabbages."

She looked curiously over the journal, unfazed by the pixie rat squirming in her grasp. Ronan snatched the book and wiped frantically at the pages, ignoring the girl buzzing like a gnat in his ear. "Are you the new help? Rowan, is it? Don't let his theatrics fool you; Edgar loves me, he's just greedy. Edgar is this pest, by the way– oh, and I'm Sarah, but I'd rather you called me Sadie. Are you looking for–"

"Can you be quiet for a second?" Ronan snapped, focused on dabbing his shirt against the pages to dry them.

There was a pause, then, "Interesting way to greet your boss's kid."

And– Ronan should've made that connection sooner, but he was preoccupied. He lifted his head and finally got a good look at who was without a doubt the absent 'son.' She stood nearly as tall as him, with brown skin and eyes like her brothers, freckles like her father, and rusty red hair that curled tight against her forehead where it escaped the braid down her back.

She said it like a threat, but Ronan knew a bluff when he heard one. The wise move would be to try for a better first impression, but his book was wet with mud and the memory of Vito had left a bad taste in his mouth, and he didn't care for the haughty lilt to this girl's voice. "Gonna report me to pops for looking over my notes?"

"Notes, were they?" she challenged, then recited with a flourish, "They throw their charity balls, toasting to the 'hardworking poor'–"

"You should mind the business that pays you," Ronan bit.

"The business that pays you, you mean?"

He started past her. "I have work to do."

"And what is that work, exactly?"

"In this moment?" he called over his shoulder. "Being anywhere but here."

Sadie matched his step. "Ah, I get it," she said, tapping thoughtfully at her chin. "You're flirting with me."

Ronan screwed his face in disgust that quickly turned to disdain when he noticed the suppressed twitch of her lips. "You aren't really my type," he sneered. Later, when he was less irritated, he would ponder how much he'd meant that – Sadie wasn't exactly bad to look at.

She laughed. "I'm flattered, but don't worry; you aren't mine, either." She stuffed the pixie rat into the pocket of her flaying trousers. Its small head popped out a moment later, and it seemed content to settle there, blinking big black eyes. "Now why don't you follow me so I can get you started on some actual work, eh?"

Ronan wasn't too keen on answering to her, but he wasn't getting paid to stand around reading, so he followed a safe several steps behind as Sadie led him across the open green. They passed fields of crops on one side and a wide enclosure on the other, where cattle lazily grazed beneath the late-spring sun. She stopped at the barn at its end; Ronan's nose twitched at the smell.

Neither of them spoke until they were standing inside, a shovel clasped in Ronan's hands. "What am I meant to do with this?"

Sadie tipped her chin toward one of the stalls – or, more specifically, the pile of shit inside. Ronan blanched.

"Oh, don't make that face," Sadie grinned. "It's a very important job, collecting fertilizer. You're really keeping the farm running, you darn hero."

She clapped Ronan's back as if in gratitude.

"Oh, I see," Ronan said mournfully. "You're flirting with me, aren't you?"

Sadie barked a laugh. "Cute," she said. "Nice try; now get to work."

𓃥𓃥𓃥

Ronan lay on the sofa with his knees tucked, exhausted but awake in the dim lamplight. He was sure he'd been asleep at some point, but now he reviewed his notes with unfocused eyes for some way to pass the time.

A knock at the door made him drop the journal on his chest. It was the middle of the night. He pushed himself upright and dropped one foot silently to the floor, eyeing the knife on the table–

"Ronan?"

The breath he'd been holding left him in a rush, and he fell back into the cushions, stunned still.

"Ronan? It's me– it's Amir."

As if Ronan hadn't known.

"Listen, I . . . I don't expect you to let me in, or even open the door," continued Amir's voice, mere meters away and muffled by the door, and Ronan thought, why, why, why? "But I haven't been able to sleep, I've been so worried, so I have– I brought food, if you'll have it. Because I'll bet everything you're living on scraps even though you have the means for more, and if you're going to save every penny so you can leave someday then so be it, but– you need to eat."

Ronan didn't turn his head for fear that he'd somehow see Amir through the door. He lay a hand over his heart like he might catch it if it burst out of his chest.

"If this isn't who I think it is, then, er– forgive me. Maybe throw something at the door, I'll leave– and you can keep the food, too, in apology." Amir waited, maybe for a thud. "But . . . I think it is you. Because I remember what you said at the locksmith's–" three streets over, the house on the corner, "–and because I don't know where else you'd go, and because– because this is the only house for blocks with the lights still on."

Why? Ronan thought again and again. What is he doing here? Amir never traveled alone. One man in a group with his face covered was a sick friend – one by himself was a bandit or a fugitive. Perhaps the rules changed under the cover of night, or perhaps Amir was just stupid.

"If this is you, and you would rather I leave and never come back, then," there was a long, fearful pause. "Three knocks. Alright? Knock three times, and I swear you'll never hear from me again."

He waited again here, for three knocks this time, and Ronan nearly did it. Ronan wanted to do it. It shouldn't have been so hard, but– he was right there, right on the other side of the wall, sounding as if his fate was held in Ronan's fist.

"Felix is asleep, in case you were worried," he started again, clipped and tentative like he was still waiting for the sound. "Tony– well, she isn't speaking to Vito, it seems, so she's been staying in your bed. I thought it might comfort you to know that someone you, ah . . . someone you trust is there with him, instead of just . . ."

Ronan let his head tip back against the wall and shut his eyes.

"I don't want to say too much too fast, I'm terrified I'll upset you more, but," His next words came hoarse. "But I need you to know that– I'm sorry, Ronan, and that isn't a lie. None of it was. I meant every word I said to you, but I . . ."

Never thought you'd have to act on your promise.

Ronan remembered being twelve years old and rejected by a man who had sworn there was a place for him, and he remembered being nineteen years old and abandoned by a boy he'd thought had chosen him, and his face twisted into something angry.

He balled his fist and raised his knuckles to the wall. Before he could connect, there came a dull thud on the other side, like Amir's forehead had fallen against the door. A split-second hesitation at the sound of it, and Ronan's fist fell, too, landing soundlessly against the wood.

"It's only been three days, and I miss you so badly I can't seem to do anything else. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"

Ronan pulled his knees to his chest, if only for a place to rest a head that suddenly felt too heavy.

"Any time I think of you, I want to forget all of this stupid fucking– caution, and all I do is think of you. You make me want to be irrational, but I can't, and I'm sorry for that, too."

The house was quiet after that, but it took Ronan half of the next hour to work up the nerve to stand and open the door. Amir was gone, but where he'd stood was a cloth bundle. At the turn of the hour, when Ronan finally opened it over the table, he found paper-wrapped parcels of fruits and vegetables and nuts, salted pork and smoked beef, a loaf of bread, a jar of jam, and a stack of sweet-smelling scones.

𓃢𓃢𓃢

Song for this chapter: Quite Miss Home by James Arthur