Chapter 3: Father
Andrew had wondered how one could live modestly in a place as grand as the Hospitality House. That night, he found his first answer, when he was brought outside of the main building and led to another, smaller house in the backyard.
This house was still big, but it did not give off the feel of an extravagant mansion. Rather, it looked like the type of house an average family might buy if they had a lot of children. Compared to the ornate decorations of the Hospitality House, this house was a lot more modest looking, with a simple design and few notable decorations outside of the paint and tiling. The house itself was tall, being three stories high, and looked fairly wide, too, but despite being big, it still looked like a normal house.
Going inside, Andrew felt even more like this was just a simple home. There were no lavish decorations, just basic furniture one might buy from a common carpenter, plus some simple lamps and a feel of being in a normal family’s home. In fact, if only to look even more like the place has been lived in, there were clear signs that not everything in the house has been cleaned up, as Andrew turned a corner into the kitchen and saw pans and dishes piled up in the sink.
“Whoops, forgot to do those,” Ganymede said when she saw that.
Going further into the house, Andrew saw such sights as socks strewn about the floor, books left open on side tables, and papers lying in a pile on an office desk.
“I thought I had put those away,” Winstrom remarked.
Another voice was heard coming down the stairs… the voice of a dog, which jumped on top of Corrine.
“Hey, Lupie!” Corrine said as the dog, a large golden reclaimer, licked her face in happiness.
“You allow pets in here?” Andrew asked Blair.
“Of course,” Blair said. “As long as we take care of them and they do not enter the main House without Father’s permission… in fact, as long as we do not cause this place to fall down, he lets us take care of this house however we want.”
At this point, both Andrew and Esther gave a large yawn.
“You two must be tired after everything today,” Blair said. “Let me take you to your rooms.”
Andrew and Esther followed Blair up two flights of stairs to the third floor of rooms. There were a large number of rooms spanning the width of the house, all in one hallway.
“Andrew, your room is here,” Blair said, pointing to a room three doors from the end of the hallway, “and Esther, your room is here,” he said, pointing to a room on the other side, one door from the end of the hallway. “There will be two beds in your room, but as we have yet to find roommates for you, you can choose which bed you will take. And the bathroom is the room right at the end of the hall, and there is another one in the center of the hallway.”
Andrew went into the room and saw that it was fairly large, but only to accommodate the two people that would live in it. There was one small bed on each side, as well as one desk, one nightstand, one dresser, and one closet on each side. Because of this, the room looked large enough to be comfortable in, though not so large that, even with no one else in the room, Andrew would feel lost in a large open space.
He took out all the various things he had packed into his wings and placed them in the dresser, on the desk, or in the closet. Taking out some sleeping clothes, he got changed, and then went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Going back to his room, he took out a book, turned on the lamp on the nightstand, and got into bed to read. However, he found the bed surprisingly comfortable for how small and simple it looked, and within moments, he fell asleep with the light still on and the book dropping out of his hands onto the ground.
When he woke up the next morning, he noticed that the light was on and turned it off. He then saw the clock on the wall, which said that it was already the ninth hour of the early day. Wow, I think this is the first time I have ever slept in so late, he thought to himself. He got out of bed and quickly got dressed, thinking that he might have been keeping this Father he was going to meet waiting. I hope he will not be mad; it is my first day of work and I am already late, he thought.
Continue reading →
