Holiday Cheer from Andrew Grey and Amy Lane

Proximity

Proximity

MARK TAYLOR —not to be confused with Chuck, he often said—was surprised to see his parents’ stodgy neighbor, who never met a dress shoe he couldn’t spit-polish or a hair he couldn’t smooth back, was only twenty-eight.

But passed out and medicated, Cassidy Hancock was not only much younger than Mark assumed, he was also a lot cuter.

He had pointed features, which, when his brows were drawn down and his mouth pursed in disapproval, could appear severe and nearly fortyish. Relaxed with the medication, the skin was smooth and the mouth was actually softer than it first seemed.

Cassidy didn’t look disapproving so much as he looked vulnerable, and Mark wasn’t prepared for that. In spite of the praises his mother sang, Mark thought the guy was some sort of neighborhood sour plum, scowling at everything, talking to nobody.

And then Gus-Gus had licked his face and he’d smiled.

Mark loved the big tube-of-weird himself, but to see this guy, who was as buttoned-up as anyone he’d ever seen, including his ex-boyfriend, succumb to that charm—that was interesting.

Mark stood over Cassidy’s hospital bed, studying his chart, when he heard a rustle behind him. “Isn’t this your day off?”

He turned around and smiled. Holly Jacobsen was in her early thirties, with two children and a husband who was a delivery driver for UPS. She wore her thick blond hair in a short pixie cut and even had sparkly blue eyes and dimples. If she didn’t have the slight crow’s feet that indicated experience— and humor—she would definitely not look old enough to be the charge nurse on the orthopedic floor.

“It is,” Mark said, shrugging. “I’m barely on the schedule until after Christmas.” This had been on purpose. He was a senior resident at Folsom Medical Center, but he’d served his junior residency in the Bay Area. His father’s passing and a bad breakup had given him a reason to apply for the senior position. He’d lucked out—Harry Chu, his boss, also happened to be one of his best friends coming up through Stanford and had given him a chance.

Mark didn’t have the best record on paper.

His grades were great, yes, but he had a real problem with time management. Harry had known this, but he’d also frequently said Mark was one of the best doctors he’d ever worked with, and that was long after the internship they’d served together in the Mission District in San Francisco.

“You care, you listen, you pay attention—you catch things other doctors don’t,” Harry had said when he’d given Mark the job. “But you have got to learn to get your ass in gear!”

“Harry,” Mark had ventured—carefully, of course, because he’d wanted the job and he hadn’t wanted to piss his old friend off, “has it occurred to you that the reason I catch things other doctors don’t is because I’m taking the time to pay attention?”

Harry grunted. “Yes. I completely get that. But you can’t be Dr. Superman—everybody needs your time, not the first people on your roster, okay?”

So Harry gave Mark the job in a probationary way, with a light schedule before Christmas so he’d have time to help his mom fix up the house and get settled in the area and perhaps learn to arrive punctually more than 50 percent of the time.

Mark had managed about 80 percent so far, and Harry was pleased, but that didn’t mean the rest of the staff wasn’t rooting for him.

But then, the 20 percent of the time he’d been late had been to stop and get them donuts. Mark wasn’t stupid. Keep the nurses and PAs happy and you could pretty much rule the hospital.

“So,” Holly said now, laughing, “what are you doing here?”

Mark shrugged. “This is my neighbor. There he was, walking to his car while I was chasing Gus-Gus down the sidewalk, and suddenly a tree falls on his head.”

“I thought it was his leg that was broken?”

Mark grimaced. “Well, he paused for some reason as he was walking toward his car, otherwise it would have been game over and lights out. Anyway, they got him free of the tree—and seriously, the branch impaled his leg, poor guy. Broke his tibia and his fibula, and isn’t he frickin’ lucky it wasn’t his femur—and as they were loading him up in the ambulance, they said, ‘Is there somebody you’d like us to call?’”

“And he said…?” Holly made a get-on-with-it gesture.

“Nobody,” Mark said. “He said, ‘No one.’ And I felt awful for the guy. My mom came and got Gus-Gus, and I got in the ambulance with him. While Harry was operating on his leg, I showered up and put on a coat so I could look official in scrubs, because seriously, I’m just here for him.”

“Aw,” she said, actually looking at Cassidy as he lay dozing under the anesthetic. “Good-looking guy. Is he nice?”

“I have no idea,” Mark said. “My mom seems to think so. I know he’s obsessed with not being late because he’s always looking at his watch.” It was an old-fashioned timepiece too—not a Fitbit or a Garmin but a gold watch on a leather band, like something a father would give to his son.

She gave a snort. “Didn’t you say that’s why you broke up with your boyfriend?

“Well, he was obsessed with being on time and he was a dick,” Mark said, although, like with most things, there was more to it than that. “But this guy gets a chance to prove he’s not a dick, at least. Besides, my mother would never forgive me. Apparently he’s been mowing her lawn along with his, and raking her leaves too, since Dad passed. He did it for months before she noticed, and when she went over to say something, he looked mortally embarrassed. She said about all he got out was ‘I’m so sorry about your husband,’ before he excused himself and closed the door. But he kept doing her chores for her—including cleaning her gutters. Not expecting thanks, just, you know, doing nice things.”

“Oh,” Holly said. “So he is a good guy.”

“Either that or he’s a plant from the HOA,” Mark joked, and Holly laughed as he expected she would. But in truth, he was curious about the guy. His mother seemed to think he was just a little shy, but Mark wondered if there was more to it than that.

“Well, I’ll leave you to ponder,” she said. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Mark shook his head and pulled up a chair, yawning. “Thanks, Holly. I’m going to wait until he wakes up and see if he needs anything.” He’d been up late the night before, studying new grafting procedures so he could be ready if it came up, and he wouldn’t mind a nice little doze in the comfy guest chair now.

She left, and he’d just gotten settled in, with his eyes closed, when a tired and surprisingly deep male voice said, “She brought me muffins when I moved in.”

Mark blinked awake. “Who—”

“Your mom. She brought me muffins. I wrote her a thank-you note, but it didn’t seem like enough.”

Mark smiled fondly. “Well, my mom’s like that. Nice, nice lady.”

“You’re lucky,” Cassidy Hancock said. He squeezed his eyes tight. “I need to call my boss. Tell her why I’m late.”

Mark grimaced. For a moment he’d been so human. “Buddy, I hate to break this to you, but you’re more than late—you’re going to be stuck at home for at least a month, and you’ll need in-home nursing and someone to stay with you overnight too.”

Cassidy closed his eyes tightly. “No,” he muttered. “No, no, no, no, no….”

“Hey,” Mark said gently. “It’s okay. You have insurance and even the extra work insurance—I saw your card as the nurse was admitting you. I’m sorry. They can’t fire you for this—”

Cassidy shook his head. “I can work from home,” he said. “I don’t always, but… I just… I don’t know anyone. I… I live alone. Who’s going to come stay with me? I’ll be late!”

Mark was going to laugh at him just like he’d laughed at Brad, his ex, but he couldn’t. Something about the half-panicked, almost tearful note in his voice when he said I’ll be late! really tore at Mark’s chest. This wasn’t just a quirk of being uptight, was it? This was something deeper.

“Well, we can make some modifications to your house to help you,” Mark said. “First, though, let me get you your phone, and you can talk to your boss and explain. There’s got to be someone at work who can help you out.”

Mark listened unabashedly to Cassidy’s phone call and was even more mystified when he was done. Cassidy’s boss, Rose McCormick, seemed like a real nice lady. She was not, in fact, a fire-breathing dick.

“Honey, don’t worry about it. We’ll miss you, for sure, but you’re laid up! We’ll make do until you get your computer and your house set up, okay?”

Cassidy nodded, looking miserable. “I should be able to be online tomorrow—”

“The day after, at the earliest,” Mark said, appalled. Cassidy sent him a tortured look, and he shook his head sternly. “It would be better if you took a week,” he said, not sure how much he could get away with.

“A week it shall be,” Rose said. “You haven’t taken any time off in years—practically since I hired you, which was when?”

“Five years ago,” Cassidy said.

“That’s terrible! Take a week off! Don’t worry, Cass—the job will be here when you get back.”

Cassidy looked stricken. “You promise?” he asked in a small voice.

Rose’s face softened over the phone screen, as though she knew something about Cassidy Hancock that Mark did not. “Of course, sweetie. You don’t just forget your assistant—and your friend—because he got hurt.”

Cassidy nodded into his phone, looking lost and sad—and definitely younger than fortyish, and even younger than twenty-eight. “Okay. If you’re sure—I can do online if you need me—”

“Honey, relax,” she said. “Let this nice young man take care of you for a little while. He seems capable.”

“Oh—he’s not taking care of me,” Cassidy said, as though he’d found his footing again. “He’s my neighbor. And a doctor—but not mine. He was nice enough to call the ambulance and check on me and—”

“My mom and I will help him set up his house,” Mark said, barging into his video call. “He’s going to need a little help and looking after.”

Rose—who looked to be in her fifties but spectacularly in her fifties, with smooth skin, short auburn hair, and cheekbones to die for—nodded, frowning. “Will he need help renting the equipment? We had to set up my mother’s house when she broke her ankle. Does he have anyone to order for him and open up his house before he’s discharged?”

“Rose, I can handle that—” Cassidy began, so Mark tugged gently on the phone until he had it to himself.

“I can help him set up the delivery,” Mark said, “and my mother will be there to help him set up the house. We both work, though. I’ve got a light schedule, so I can check in a lot, but if we could coordinate tomorrow? He’s going to need things like meal prep and housecleaning help for the next six weeks at least. I guess he doesn’t have any family in town?”

“He doesn’t have any family at all,” Rose said, her voice dropping with compassion.

Mark turned his head to see Cassidy studiously looking away from this conversation, like it didn’t have anything to do with him.

“Well, that’s going to change,” he decided. “No man’s an island—particularly not with a cast that sticks out from the wheelchair.”

“He’s got insurance,” Rose said, “but you’re right. He’s going to need help. Go ahead and take down my number from his phone—you seem like a capable young man. Between the two of us we should see that he’s taken care of.”

“And don’t forget my mother,” Mark said. “Believe me, once Yvonne Taylor gets her hands on a project, it’s a lock.”

“Wonderful. Well, between us, Dr. Taylor, let’s see if we can’t take care of Cassidy. He’s a very sweet boy, and my office can’t function without him for too long.” She gave him a wink that let him know Cassidy was more to her than just her assistant. “Call me as soon as you have the details for setting up his home.”

And with that she signed off, leaving Mark to smile encouragingly at Cassidy. “See? She was lovely. You can rest today; we can get you set up in the next few—you’ll be fine.”

Cassidy nodded, but he didn’t look happy. In fact, his big hazel eyes were red-rimmed and shiny, and as Mark watched in dismay, he leaned back against his pillow and closed them, forcing the tears to spill over.

“Hey, hey,” Mark soothed, wondering if this was just shock and exhaustion. Poor guy had, in fact, had quite a day. “Don’t worry—you’ve got people. We’ll take good care of you.”

“I don’t have people,” Cassidy whispered. “And in the end, it’s only me.”

Mark opened his mouth to protest, but Cassidy’s eyes were closed and he looked like he was probably falling asleep, so all Mark could do was look at him in surprise and wonder what had happened to this man before the tree had fallen on him.

Something had obviously left bigger damage than a broken leg.

MARK LEFT soon after Cassidy fell asleep, feeling bad about leaving him alone in the hospital but needing to get started on the retrofitting of the one-story ranch-style house now, before they took Cassidy home.

He also really wanted to talk to his mother.

He grabbed Cassidy’s keys from his belongings, feeling a little like a thief, and tiptoed out of the hospital room with more stealth than was probably necessary. On his way out, he met Holly, who was standing by the nurse’s station and charting on her tablet.

“You off?” she asked.

Mark glanced back to Cassidy’s hospital room, troubled. “Tell him I’m going to set up his house,” he said. “Tell him I’ll be back when I can make it.”

“Anything wrong?” she asked.

Mark shook his head. “No… yes… maybe?”

She laughed a little. “That’s clear.”

“He’s… sad,” Mark said, not sure why this should bother him so much, with the possible exception that this nice, handsome, vulnerable man had been kind to his mother when she’d needed it most. “I set his phone up to charge, but let me know if he needs anything, okay? And tell the next shift to do the same.”

“Sure,” she said before grinning at him. “I’ll make a note on his chart.”

“You’re very cute,” he said dryly and then left.

THE NEXT day, Mark visited Cassidy on his morning rounds, taking five minutes to reassure the man that he hadn’t been forgotten.

The way Cassidy’s face lit up—and then that light dampened as quickly as possible—as Mark walked in stuck with him. He kept Cassidy’s key—this time with permission—and promised to tell Cassidy how he and his mother planned to modify the house so Cassidy could come home.

“Can I call you Cass?” he asked as he pocketed the key.

“I guess my boss does,” Cassidy replied, looking disconcerted.

“We’ll feel it out and see if it works,” Mark promised. Something about that confusion twisted in his chest a little, and he was determined to solve the mystery of Cassidy Hancock if he did nothing else that day.

Later, as afternoon shadows stretched long across his tree-lined residential street, he opened the door to the neighbor’s house for his mother. They ventured inside a little bit timidly—it felt alien and wrong to be there without the mysterious and reserved Cassidy Hancock, but Mark knew it had to be done.

The house had a partially open floor plan, the kitchen widening to a small dining room with a table obviously set up as an office space. There was an office chair set at a slightly off angle on the side of the round table, with the other four matching chairs crowded a little to accommodate it.

“Why is this crooked?” his mom asked herself softly.

The answer came immediately. “He can look out the window!” Mark supplied. From that chair, the large picture window of a breakfast nook peered out into the neighborhood. “We’re in the corner lot. He can see the whole cul-de-sac from here—see?”

He pulled his mother to where he was standing, and she looked around as though pleasantly surprised.

“It’s the whole neighborhood,” she said. “What a lovely space.”

“Unless you wanted to do something untoward on the table,” he said with a wicked grin, because he would and he had, but also because he wanted his mother to react.

She smacked his arm and said, “Stop that!” and they were both satisfied.

The breakfast nook and dining room table were on one side of the foyer, and on the other side, still sharing space, sat a living room area that consisted of a couch and a love seat at right angles to each other but turned toward a television. He had gorgeous bookcases—hickory or oak, but hand-finished—filled with books on every subject from history to science to literature, all of them dust-free and, he noted in surprise, organized in alphabetical order according to author.

“Wow,” he muttered, looking down the hallway toward the bedroom. He wondered if something in there indicated a human lived in this space, because standing in the foyer, he couldn’t see it. The hickory picture frames over the mantel were spotless and dust-free, the diplomas on the wall behind the television in the same shape. Mark ventured closer to read the diplomas. Sac City High School, American River Junior College, CSU Sacramento—all local schools, but he’d been in the National Honor Society in high school and summa cum laude for his AA, BA, and MBA. He saw no pictures of Cassidy himself on the walls— which was reassuring, really, because the guys Mark had dated that lived alone but had their portraits on the walls were really sort of douchey—but the pictures on the brick mantel of the gas fireplace in the corner looked promising.

He’d just taken a step toward them when his mother spoke.

Her first words were not encouraging. “This is psychotically clean,” she said, horrified.

“You like a clean house!” he protested. “You haven’t stopped nagging me about my room since I was five!”

She gave him a droll look. “That’s because you think three-quarters clean is all-the-way clean. Your room isn’t clean if you’ve got a pile of moldy socks under your bed and you have to sniff the seat of your jeans to see if they’ve got one more day of wear.”

“Who told!” he asked, embarrassed.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, Mark. We knew.”

“It was Dani and Keith,” he said, naming his siblings without compunction. “They lie, Mom. They lie to get out of trouble—you know that.”

“Yes, honey, and you tattle. It’s a good system. Now this looks pretty accessible. The refrigerator and counter have a lot of space between them, and he can probably maneuver that in the chair, but he may need some help with the dishes because the sink and the counter are high. I think if we put a small table over here”—she pointed to a space between the refrigerator and the far counter—“and put the microwave on it, he can open the fridge, get a meal, and heat it up here. So that’s a small modification. Now, refrigerator. Let’s take a look.”

“He likes fizzy water,” Mark said. “And salads in a bag.”

“And making his own sandwiches,” Yvonne said, looking at the jar of pickles, the tomatoes—one of them sliced—and the processed cheese slices, all lined up neatly. The meat drawer held cold cuts, and there was a loaf of bread in a breadbox on the counter, as well as a box of granola to match the milk on the door.

“Well, not exciting,” his mother began, but Mark suspiciously opened the freezer drawer.

“Ice cubes and five frozen dinners,” she finished, her voice dull. “Oh, baby. I’m gonna feed this kid if it kills me.”

Mark had to admit, it made perfect sense. Cereal every morning, a sandwich in the afternoon, a frozen dinner when he got home. Self-sufficient and methodical, but not… happy.

“Let’s take a look at his bedroom and bathroom. That’s where we usually need help.” His mother sounded desperately optimistic, but he had to agree. Yvonne Taylor was an occupational therapist—she specialized in helping people work with disabilities or injuries. Whether she said, “We need a small table to set up the microwave,” or “Hey, a jungle gym in the bathroom would be good,” Mark would take her at her word.

“The hardwood floors are good,” she said, and then paused before adding, “and very pretty. I mean, Mark, you can’t deny he’s got good taste.”

Dark wood—hickory, leadwood, stained acacia—dominated the living room and dining room furniture pieces, but the floor was redwood. The upholstery was beige or cream, and so were the rugs, but the effect, with all of the different tones of wood, was striking and warm.

“It is a nice house,” he agreed. “A little… well, like you said. Oddly clean.”

“Let’s see if he has skeletons in his closet,” she told him with a smile that made her look younger than her nearly sixty years.

“Or bodies in the bathtub,” Mark added grimly. Nothing about this house or its occupant seemed healthy.

“You are being cynical,” she reprimanded and then grinned. “Or jealous because he’s mastered the art of cleanliness and you haven’t.”

“Ha!” But Mark had to laugh. His mother was so very resilient—and not afraid to put her children in their places.

Mark, at twenty-seven, was the youngest, Keith was the oldest, and Dani was the pampered middle princess, which she readily admitted. Their mother still kept her hair dyed a wheat-colored blond, and her wide brown eyes were both lovely and wise. She may have gained a few more wrinkles after her gentle husband passed, but she was still luminously beautiful—at least in her children’s eyes.

But as they ventured down the hallway, Mark got a sinking feeling that the lack of dust bunnies was even worse than skeletons.

He liked the guest room, complete with a queen-sized bed that had never been slept in but had been made up with a white coverlet and white throw pillows, and was almost showroom pristine. There was also a small den, which had been converted to a weight room with a stationary bicycle and a Bowflex, both of which explained the fact that Cassidy Hancock was not squishy around the middle—but he wasn’t jacked to the nines either.

“We’ll need a set of parallel bars in here,” his mother said thoughtfully. “He’s going to have to work to walk after his cast gets taken off. But otherwise, this is perfect.”

“Too perfect,” Mark grumbled. Everything had been wiped down. He even saw, gym style, a little rack with towels and a spray bottle of disinfectant in the corner. A hamper, which in Mark’s room would be filled with dirty towels and probably some stinky gym clothes, was empty and smelled of Lysol.

“Mm,” his mother said, mind obviously on her job. “I don’t see any room back here for a washer/dryer, which means they’re probably in the garage. They might be inaccessible—we’ll need to see.”

They got to the end of the hallway, with a perfectly cream-tiled bathroom and a large shower but no bathtub. “This might be perfect,” she said. “There is plenty of room for him to maneuver, and if we put a lift on the toilet seat, he should be able to use the facilities on his own. We’ll have to help him the first couple of times—it’ll be awkward.”

“Well, it’s only being naked in front of your neighbors,” Mark said, and her lips quirked. Making his mother laugh was one of his favorite life goals.

“That might be worse for him than the tree through the leg,” she said seriously, and Mark felt a sigh welling up.

“There is something about him,” he murmured. “Something… damaged.”

She nodded. “Yes. I got that idea too. I tried to thank him for all his hard work with muffins once and… the look on his face. You had to see it. Like he’d been stabbed.”

“Did he take the muffins?” Mark asked. His mother was a decent cook, and her Christmas cookies were to die for, but she was not a fabulous baker. Maybe Cassidy had known the perils of pumpkin muffins that could be thrown through a glass window.

“No,” she said sadly. “He blushed and stammered and said he didn’t want to go. Which was odd.”

“He didn’t want to go?” Now Mark was really surprised.

“Yeah. I told him he was welcome to stay, and we liked him in the neighborhood, and I was going to try with something else, but, you know, you moved in and God dropped a tree on him.”

“The wind dropped a tree on him, Mom,” Mark said dryly. “Maybe God kept it from dropping the tree on his head.”

His mom’s peal of laughter surprised him. “Oh my God—Mark! I was watching the whole thing from the window! You kept the tree from dropping on his head. He was just standing there, keys in one hand, briefcase in the other, staring at you as you ran after Gus-Gus. It was the damnedest thing!”

Mark remembered that moment, chasing after the damned dog and seeing those wide hazel eyes fixed hungrily on his face. For a moment, the “hurry-hurry” had dropped from Cassidy Hancock, and what had been left was interested man.

“Well, maybe not the damnedest thing,” he said modestly.

She looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

Mark lifted a shoulder and threw some swagger into his smile and raised eyebrows. “Really-really.”

His mother gave an unladylike snort. “Well, that would be awkward. I have the feeling you two might drive each other crazy.”

Mark let his eyes drift around the hallway—long and straight and perfectly crème, with hickory moldings running along the floor, at waist level, and at the ceiling. “Hey, this house needs a little crazy,” he said. “Let’s take a look at the bedroom.”

The bedroom was pretty much exactly what Mark expected. Eggshell-painted walls with a bedroom set of complementing and contrasting wood. The comforter was a surprise, though—a deep and soulful blue, with a patterning of white droplets over it, like rain. Mark felt a little bit of hope looking at it. It didn’t match, and it looked worn and loved.

Then he saw the print on the wall, what looked like a lithograph of a piece of artwork that had been created with—surprise!—a patterning of different shades of wood. In this case it was a sunrise, with the sun made of something blond like ash and casting shadows of cypress and hickory.

“Pretty,” his mother said, looking around. “Well, we’ve got a decent mattress, but we may need to bring some props in for his leg. The bedroom set is so nice—I’d hate to replace it with a hospital bed. Let me see what I can do.” She turned and ventured into the adjoining bathroom, and he could tell by her sigh that there were no surprises there either.

White tile—the barest and whitest. This was the one room that obviously hadn’t been remodeled when Cassidy moved into the house. There was a shower/tub assembly, white and cast- iron, and a white-painted vanity that showed a lot of wear, splintering in places. A hamper sat in the corner. Mark looked inside out of sheer curiosity.

Briefs, socks, a tattered T-shirt, and a pair of sweats with holes in the knees sat inside, and Mark shut the lid with a sigh of relief.

“He’s human after all?” his mother asked.

“It was starting to creep me out,” he said.

“Me too.” Without shame, she swung the mirror out on the vanity and peered inside the medicine cabinet. Shaving kit, electric shaver, ibuprofen, extra soap, and a couple of medications sat in militarily neat lines along the shelves. The medicine bottles were arranged perfectly, labels out, and Yvonne nodded like something made sense.

“Scary?” he asked.

She turned sad eyes to him. “Institutional,” she said softly. “He’s spent some time in a hospital or an orphanage or a mental facility—even children from foster homes do this sometimes. There’s so much regimented time and so little personal interaction. It’s like a person’s entire self-worth becomes centered on the details like how neat your medicine cabinet is, how perfect your hair is done, how—”

“On time you are,” Mark murmured.

Her eyebrows went up. “Oh yes.”

Mark swallowed, wanting to go back and look at the pictures on the mantelpiece again. “Do you think? I mean, maybe we’re just writing a mystery when there isn’t one.”

His mother pulled in a breath. “Or maybe he’s just been sitting at the kitchen table, looking outside the front window, and seeing the lives and the families he’s always wanted passing in front of his eyes.”

Mark swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat. “Wow,” he muttered. “That sucks. That really sucks. That….” He took a deep breath and remembered he was a doctor. “That is nothing more than conjecture.”

Yvonne Taylor’s luminous eyes peered at him, and that protective armor of doubt softened substantially. “Now that you’ve met him, do you really think so?”

He let out a hurt sound. “I think,” he said, “that I am very interested in making sure our new neighbor is going to be okay. I mean—” He looked around. “—it’s the first week of December, and I don’t see a single holiday decoration—of any sort of holiday. If nothing else, we should help him put those up, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “But first let’s get to work. My office can lend us the pillows and props for the bed, and we’ve got some stuff in the garage that can help for the rest of this. All we really need is some rails installed in the bathroom. I think we can have this place ready for Cassidy Hancock in very short order.”

As they wandered into the front room, his phone buzzed in his pocket. “It’s Holly,” he said before hitting the little green button. “What’s up, beautiful?”

“He’s up,” she said. “I just ended my shift. Is there anything you’d like me to ask him?”

“Mm… favorite foods, allergies, and what holidays he celebrates in the winter.”

“Uhm….”

“Trust me, it’s all need-to-know.”

Holly gave a short laugh. “Wow, that’s hush-hush. Hold on a sec, I’ll go talk to him.” She hung up, and Mark looked at his mother, eyebrows raised.

“So,” Yvonne said softly. “Are we going to do this? Make this guy our project? I….” She looked around the house helplessly. “He seems pretty self-sufficient.”

Since they’d moved to the front of the house, Mark wandered to the mantel. Something about those photos had been bugging him.

The first one he spotted was a group shot, a little out of focus, with a lot of people with red-eye, including Cassidy, who was standing at the end of a line, looking wistfully at the ten or so people in the center of the shot. One of those people, Mark could see, was the woman who had been talking to Cassidy about taking time off from work—Rose, his boss.

“Work,” he murmured. And then he turned to the next photo, an outdoor shot of two children, more than professional quality. In fact, airbrushed. With a little price tag in the corner. “Stock photo,” he said, frowning, but underneath, a neat, cramped hand had written Katie and Joshua . He swallowed and looked at the next picture. Another stock photo that came with the frame—this one a laughing young teenage girl in a bright red shirt, dancing in a clean hallway. Sister Diane. Oh God. This was going to break him. Another stock photo, an older couple, silver-haired, blue-eyed, with laugh lines, smiling at the photographer over coffee with an ocean background. Mom and Dad. And a final stock photo, a handsome adult male posing on the front lawn in shorts and a T-shirt with a handsome young Labrador retriever as an accessory. No caption on this one—but the implication was clear.

Mark stood staring at the clutter of Cassidy Hancock’s dream family and tried to master his breathing. In his pocket, his phone rang, and his mother, who had moved to look over his shoulder, bumped him gently.

“Get that,” she murmured.

His voice came out artificially bright. “Talk to me, Holly. I need your help, oh wise one.”

“He’s allergic to strawberries,” she said, “celebrates Christmas but hasn’t put his decorations up yet, and he says his favorite food is homemade lasagna or chicken casserole. How’d I do?”

“Perfect,” Mark said, trying to get his balance. “I… I think we can work with that.”

“So,” she asked, her voice sinking conspiratorially, “what’s his house like? A freak show? Are there bodies in the closet? Spiders in cages? What?”

Mark had to smile, but it was sad. “It’s a lovely place,” he said, meaning it. “Just needs some finishing touches.” Like other people in Cassidy Hancock’s life.

“Well, that’s disappointing for the part of me that watches television mysteries, but as someone who’s been his nurse all day? It’s good to know. He’s… haunted, if that makes any sense. I’m glad it’s not too bad.”

Mark couldn’t tell her about the pictures or the institutionally arranged refrigerator and medicine cabinet. He was afraid to look in the garage and wondered if he arranged his laundry products in neat little rows like the books on the shelves.

“Friendly faces and voices might be really important to him,” Mark said. “Make sure you tell him goodbye and that you’ll be in tomorrow. I just… even if it’s temporary, I think he needs to know you’re coming back.”

“Oh. Okay. I can do that. He seems like a sweet guy—not a problem. He was asking for you.”

Mark swallowed. “Cool. Tell him we’ll be setting up his house tomorrow—and not to fill up on hospital dinner tonight. I’ll bring him takeout.”

“Aw, that sweet. Well, gotta go—glad there weren’t any bodies!”

She signed off, and Mark was left trying to wipe his eyes on his shoulder without alerting his mother. Her warm hand on the small of his back told him he’d failed.

“So that’s a yes,” Yvonne said when he’d pocketed his phone.

“About what?”

“About making him a project.”

“Yes and no,” he told her.

“What’s the no?”

“Maybe I just want to know him a little better.”

Her eyebrows arched. “Honey—”

“Look, he deserves more than to be a ‘project.’ But there’s also the possibility he’s a dick. Let’s start with being his friends and work from there,” he told her.

“Sure,” she said. “Now let me go make some calls and we can bring him takeout.”

“ I was gonna bring him takeout!” he protested.

“Yes, but honey, I’m curious about him now. And hungry. And I don’t want to cook. Also, we should ask where his Christmas decorations are, because you’ll be breaking them out tomorrow.”

Mark laughed. “Understood. We need you there. I get it.”

“Get what?”

He hooked his arm around her shoulders. “I get that you’re a nosy old broad and I’m at your mercy.”

She laughed and leaned into him. “Yes on both counts. Shall we go?”

They went.