Rose Dubois wasn’t close with her uncle Louis, but his sickness and death left its mark on her.

He told her she had a brother on a rainy Friday in August, his breathing corpse hooked up to machines. He passed away the next day, soul vacating his body forever.

Rose thinks she is familiar with loss, so when she gets the call at her friend’s house, she doesn’t cry. Rather, she calls the number of her long lost brother. She hates talking on the phone, and has to psych herself up to press in the number and wait for an answer. Heath is shocked to hear from her. She’s nervous he won’t take her in but that fear is quickly assuaged when he says he was planning on settling down from his nomadic lifestyle soon, anyway. He tells her of a house in Wyvern Heights, New Hampshire, and catches the next flight to Maine.

Rose believes she won’t get depressed over it, until a few days later, when grief strikes and bares its ugly fangs at her. Her mother died in childbirth, but this did nothing to prepare her for knowing someone who has died. Yes, they had their differences (He was anti-LGBT and owned a MAGA hat), but they’d say “I love you”. Rose had no one to say that to, now, and that realization shattered her world. They stay at a hotel until the funeral, and she spends a half hour every day crying on the shower floor.

Rose’s therapist, Marie, has an appointment with her over Zoom. The woman tells her she hated change, and rightfully so, as this shift in routine is of the most extreme kind. Rose jokes that it was because she’s an earth sign, but the wise crack zips over Marie’s head. She tells her to find out what insurance her brother has, to which Heath later told her he would have to buy one. This is Rose’s first indication that something wasn’t right with him.

Heath is… different. Rose wonders if maybe he is autistic with ADHD like she is, afflicted with inattention, hyperfixations, noise sensitivity and tactile irritations. She notices he bounces his leg a lot, and that he dresses strangely when they go out. He wears a mask that covers his nose, long sleeves and long pants in the summer, leather gloves and a wide-brimmed hat with dark round sunglasses. He tells her he’s just being cautious and that he heard there’s another COVID wave coming, and that he has a condition that makes his skin sensitive to light.

The moving truck follows them to the house, which is a large pitch black victorian with three stories, four including the basement.

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Rose is listening to music when there’s a tap on her shoulder. “Hey.” She can’t hear him, but can read the shape of his lips.

Rose pushes a headphone behind her left ear. “Hi.”

“Do you like books?” asks Heath.

Rose loves books. “Kind of.”

“I need to help the movers, but go upstairs and check out the library. That is, if you want to. Did you eat breakfast?”

Rose shakes her head. He gets out his wallet and hands her a green debit card. “You can order something, and anything else you want for your room.”

Rose looks at him analytically, like an animal sniffing at the hand of a suspicious stranger. She eyes herself in his shades’ reflection.

“‘Kay.”

The library is huge, shelves of books so big they stretch up and touch the ceiling. Rose spends that afternoon picking books out and flipping through Amazon for a new bedspread. When her hunger is unignorable, she gets a Chipotle burrito with chips and a Coke. She saves half for later, putting it in Heath’s fridge which is full of cardboard boxes. When she finds Heath again, he’s in her room, which has her bookshelf fully shelved, her carpet laid down, and her posters hung up.

“You got a lot done,” she says, a “thank you” on her lips.

“I can move the bed if you don’t like it beneath the window.”

Rose doubts that, as the movers are gone and her bed is bone-breakingly massive. “Nah, it’s fine…Thanks.”

The doorbell rings and Heath cusses under his breath. “Stay here,” he says.

Rose waits until he’s down the stairs to start creeping down them. She pauses her music and listens in on the conversation.

“We haven’t seen you in awhile, Heath! How’ve you been?” asks a female voice.

“Good, but I’m a bit busy. I don’t mean to brush you off, I’m just…busy,” he repeats.

“Is someone living with you now? I don’t mean to be nosy but we all saw the truck.”

“I’m fostering someone, actually. A teenage girl.”

The woman on the other side of the door gasps. “Does the Town Council know?”

“Not yet, but I’d appreciate it if they don’t find out until I tell them.”

“Oh, I won’t tell a soul! Does she know about… you know what?”

“No. Bye, Ingrid.” He shuts the door and spins on his heel, heading up the stairs.

Rose scrambles back to her room, pretending to be engrossed in a book. “Oh, hi,” she says when she sees him standing in her doorway.

“I know you heard that.”

“Heard what?” she asks innocently.

“Look. I won’t ever ask you to do much. But when I do, you need to listen. Understood?”

“If you think–!” Rose bites her tongue, takes in the bigger picture. She has questions she wants answered, and is still weary of getting on Heath’s bad side. “I mean, yeah… okay.”

It’s not an apology, but it suffices, as Heath spins on his heels and leaves the room abruptly.

Rose bends the corner of her book’s page, flipping onto her back as she stares at the ceiling. She realizes with a shudder that she’s a little scared of Heath, and that’s why she’s refraining from interrogating him. She also wonders if her life will ever slip back into any semblance of normalcy.