Walt reached into a nearby drawer for something. Janice hoped it wasn’t a gun. But instead of a gun, the man brought out some papers.
“This is the deed to the house,” he said. “I want you to have it.”
Yep, it was a dream, all right. There was no way that Walter was really standing in front of her, a fugitive, telling her that his house was now her own. It was the right amount of crazy with a little slice of expectation and hope that made the dream real enough to be false.
But a second passed. And then another. Walt was still standing in front of her, the world not melting away. He walked over to her and handed her the papers.
She had a house, a real house. Trying to hold back her excitement, but having it bubble up anyway, she hugged the man. He felt warm under his flannel, almost electric. He hugged her back for a moment before moving back.
“How much do I owe you?” she said.
Numbers flashed around in her head. Walt was her friend, but this was a good spot for a property. The personal connection, though, might make him more apt to lower the price. She could run over to the bank after their little meeting and then get all of the finances arranged. She had good credit, enough savings for a small down payment and then—
“The house is free,” he said.
Janice’s mouth dropped. She closed it. This day was full of surprises, and they were just getting better and better.
“There is a cost though,” Walt said, “but it’ll be an easy one to pay. All you need to do is live here, use this home to make a home more or less. I know that sounds like something off a Hallmark card, but it’s true. This house has been empty for so long. It’ll do it some good to have people living in it again.”
The two of them went on a tour of the house. Everything had been packed up and moved. Walt showed the master bedroom, the kitchen, the television (which looked about as old as he was), the living room, and finally the kid’s bedroom.
“This room is an important one,” Walt said, “and I think your kids will enjoy it.”
The kids would enjoy anything better than the small space they currently had. There were other kids in this neighborhood too, real kids. There were kids at the apartment where Janice currently lived, though they weren’t all that great. Not the role model sort of kids that Janice wanted her own to be around. They would be closer to the school, and closer to the Stewarts.
And before she knew it, she and Walt were walking out the front door, her front door, and onto her now driveway. People were looking over at them, perhaps wondering if that was the missing Walt standing in the driveway.
Walt said that there was a folder in the kitchen with all of the heating, electrical, plumbing, trash collecting, and other information that she could look through whenever.
“What do I say when the cops come?” she said.
“Maybe tell them what you saw, word for word,” Walt said, “and maybe they’ll believe you. Maybe not.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“A friend of mine and I have to head up north to take a look at something,” he said. “Something tells me it’s going to be a one-way trip, one way or another.”
A purple blur appeared in front of them.
Walt’s truck, steaming as though it had just been through a hot car wash, appeared in front of them. A girl was standing next to it.
“I hope,” Walt said, “you’re able to make a better life for your family here then I can. There’s nothing more important than family. It took me a long time to see that, and by the time I did, it was too late.”
Walt got in and honked the horn. Janice waved, though she wasn’t sure what made her do it. The car was covered with purple light and was gone.
There was an afterimage of the car in her eyes, the way you might see whenever a light bulb breaks or some other bright light shines in your eyes. After blinking it away, there was no trace of the truck at all.
Janice still felt the papers in her hand and the key to the house. It was all real, somehow. She had gotten a house. Tears welled up in her eyes. She had been able to keep it away from Walt, but now, all alone, with a bunch of strangers watching her, Janice fell to her knees and cried a little. Oh, it felt good to cry. Somehow that made it all real, and real it would stay. A few people were coming over to talk to her. Though they weren’t people. They were her new neighbors. Janice looked at the spot where Walt disappeared, feeling bad that she might very well never know what happened to him. Perhaps she should call the cops, tell them what happened. If Walt was in danger, was in some sort of trouble, then reporting it would be the best for both him and her. The deeds to the house plus everything she told them would hold more weight if she didn’t appear to have a large role in the entire missing Walt mystery.
But she didn’t call the cops.
With her knees bleeding, her head dizzy, and her eyes wet, she reached for her phone in her purse. She wanted to call her kids, even if what she was experiencing wasn’t real or wasn’t going to happen. She wanted to hear the reaction at least since that would be genuine and would fill her soul to the brim with happiness.
She called her kids’ school and
