Waterbound

1930

"I didn't try to escape," Pat replied. It was the truth. He knew there was no escape. "I just needed silence." Was that it? "I can't think. I can't...why can't I think?"

"That would be the phenobarbital, I imagine."

"The what?"

"Phenobarbital," Charlie said, enunciating each syllable. "It's to keep everyone calm."

Calm.

Docile.

"Now, let's get back to the Common Room before they send the entire hospital out looking for you."

Pat followed him back to the room with the laughing, and the crying, and the yelling, and the neverending tap tap tap . He returned to his seat by the window and put his hands over his ears.

~~~

Fabrizio was returning home from work when he spotted a notice taped to his door. He yanked it down and stepped inside. "Lelia?" He called out, but the silence that greeted him made it clear that she wasn't home yet. Most days she was there first but every so often Rose kept her late.

With a sigh, he looked at the notice in his hand and frowned as he read it. It had to have been a mistake. He began to do the math in his head.

Lelia came in at that moment with Caroline on her hip. "I left the stroller downstairs," she said, kissing his cheek. "Could you bring it up?" She set the toddler down who immediately toddled away. "What is it?" She asked, noticing the look on his face.

"They doubling our rent," he replied. "Starting next month." Fabrizio knew that some people had been struggling ever since the crash the previous October but he wasn't sure if this rent hike was a result of it or just an opportunistic move.

"Let me see." Lelia took the notice from his hand and studied it. Her expression shifted from curiosity to concern. "They can't do that."

"They can and they are."

"Can we afford it?"

Fabrizio scooped Caroline off the ground and planted a quick kiss on her cheek. "Might feel a bit tighter but we have savings and we both working."

Lelia still looked worried. "I suppose we could always move in with my parents if we need to. My mother probably wouldn't—"

But before she could finish, Fabrizio silenced her with a kiss. "It be fine. We have too much money as it is."

"Fabri—"

"Maybe we move to better place," he continued. "One with four rooms."

She laughed. "We should ask Cal where he found his help. I imagine with four rooms, we'll be needing a housekeeper and a cook."

"And butler." Caroline squirmed in his arms and he returned her to the floor. "No one with that many rooms answer their own doors." Fabrizio grabbed Lelia's waist and, pulling her close, kissed her. "I love you."

"I love you too but if you don't bring up the stroller, someone will take it."

"I go get it," he assured her, reluctantly letting her go. "But you don't move. We're not finished yet."

Lelia laughed.

As Fabrizio descended the stairs to retrieve the stroller, he couldn't help but wonder what they would do if the rent increased a second time. There were cheaper apartments, the dirty, windowless basement tenements but the thought of raising his family in one of them horrified him. It couldn't come to that. He couldn't let it.