11- Xerondar

The room was filled with bright, warm sunlight. Xerondar groaned and laid his arm across his eyes. Perhaps curtains wouldn’t be such a bad idea. He’d chosen his new home for its windows, as well as for its location. It had an open floor plan and lots of front-facing windows, so that from nearly every room in the house he could, with just a glance, have a clear view of the beige brick house up the street. Still, the sunlight streaming into the front bedroom at seven o’clock every morning was not always welcome.

Xerondar stretched and rubbed at his face, blinked a few times, sat up, and unzipped his sleeping bag. This afternoon he would visit an actual furniture store for the first time in years. A college student living in an efficiency apartment with nothing but a bed and a chair was normal enough, but a single young man living alone in a four-bedroom house in a suburban neighborhood whose only furniture was a sleeping bag and an old trunk was a bit conspicuous. And now that he knew where she was, he could allow himself to settle down a little.

But before he went in search of dining sets and bedroom suites, he had another task. Every weekday morning, after she dropped her two children off at school, the carrier returned home, changed her clothes, and went out on her errands. She left home at almost exactly 8:20 every day. And Xerondar was almost always a comfortable distance behind her. He waited in his car while she went shopping, or dropped by her husband’s office, or had her nails done. Thankfully she had stopped her weekly spray-tan appointments when she discovered she was pregnant.

The only time he went in with her was when she had her doctor visits. Her obstetrician’s practice was in a large building full of doctors’ offices, and always had people coming and going. He would enter the building a minute or two after the carrier, then take the stairs to the fourth floor while she rode the busy elevator. By the time she arrived, he was settled into one of the comfortable chairs in the central waiting room that her OB/GYN shared with a dentist, a psychiatrist, and two pediatricians. Dr. Silva also had her own waiting room in her office, with three chairs and some fake plants, so the carrier naturally chose to wait there before her appointments. Xerondar would gladly have sat in that room as well, but he would never have been able to explain his presence there. He couldn’t really even explain it to himself. He couldn’t hear what the doctor said, couldn’t sit in for the ultrasounds, couldn’t do anything to help. All the same, he felt like he had to be there.

Xerondar laughed at himself. After all this time, he still bothered to ask himself why he did these things. The answer was simple. It was just part of who he was, and who she was, and what she was. It was the connection they had. He would always do these things that made no sense, and he would never be able to fully explain it to himself, or to anyone else. And really, he didn’t have to.