It had been a mercifully quiet Monday morning for Scott, leaving him with plenty of silence and solitude to stew in his vast range of current fears.  Maggie and Kyle were off at school, and Judy had been in her study with the door shut for three hours on a variety of webcam meetings.

            Having worked at an incredibly diligent pace as an escape from the various worries plaguing his mind, Scott had finished up his daily housework jobs just after noon, and found himself with a short reprieve.  Undoubtedly, his mother would find more work for him once she finally emerged from the office, but until then, he had some aimless quiet in which to become even more paranoid.

            He didn’t want to have to imagine what Maggie had been getting at the day before with her cringingly suggestive offer to him to actually go around Judy’s rules and let him place a call to Ella.  Since she obviously did seem to be respecting their mother’s decree, for whatever bizarre reason, that both baths and soccer games in-shoe were out, the options were suddenly limited and far more frightening for how unknowable they were.

            All he could do was imagine she would find something even worse to hold over his head in exchange for a simple two or three minute phone call, just because she had the power to do so.

            Out of desperation, Scott had gone to his brother, whom he hadn’t spoken to one-on-one in a month since Kyle’s tacit rejection of aid during the house arrest, and the most recent conversation hadn’t gone much better than the last.

            “Hey,” Scott had murmured innocently as he meandered into the lanky fifteen-year-old’s bedroom.  “Can I say something real quick?”

            “Fine,” breathed Kyle disinterestedly, his eyes unmoving from the Popular Science magazine he had his nose buried in as he reclined on his bed.  “What?”

            “I just… wanted to know.  If there was anything you needed.  Drink, snack, clean up the room.  Whatever.  I’m on it, you know?”

            “Uh-huh.  Yeah.  I’ll let you know,” Kyle deadpanned back.  Both knew full well no such request would be issued.

            “I’m serious, though.  Whatever you need, I’m here to help.”

            “What are you doing?” the taller boy groaned back, finally sparing a glance away from his magazine.

            “Nothing.  Not doing anything.  Just wanted to check in and see if you needed anything I could help with.”

            “You know I won’t do that.  I don’t need your help.  With anything.  Can you go now?  I’m trying to read,” Kyle mumbled.

            “Sure, sure, sure.  No problem.  Sorry about it, just…” Scott continued as he wandered further into the bedroom, determined not to be defeated just yet in his goal.

            “What?” Kyle blurted finally, tearing his gaze fully away from the pages.  “Just say it already, whatever it is.”

            “I just… wanted to know, if there was ever any way I could… get you to help me out with something.”

            “Me?  Help you?” Kyle scoffed under his breath.

            “Just one time.”

            “What?”

            “A phone call, for like two minutes.  That’s all.”

            Kyle’s eyes narrowed and he snorted before shaking his head in disbelief, then spoke up

up: “Mom said no phone calls for you.”

            “I know she did, but-”

            “She sat us both down, you know.  Maggie and I, and explained it all.  What you can and can’t do, and she was pretty clear about it all.  About… what happens if you get around to doing what you’re not supposed to,” Kyle droned.

            “What do you mean?”

            “What do you think I mean?  She looked us in the eye and said we’re going down to your level if we get into anything funny.”

            “I… I know that, but… but look, if it just happened while she was gone, there’d be no way in hell she’d find out about it, I’d be quick, and-”

            “It’s not just that,” Kyle hissed in interruption.  “You know it’s not just that.”

            “I… do.  God, I just… I just need a break this one time.  Just this one time to call Ella.”

            Kyle’s eyes darted back to his brother, who by now was standing next to the bed and looking earnestly up at his younger sibling.

            “Haven’t you already screwed up enough women for this year?” the teen snarled quietly, causing Scott to instinctively hang his head.

            “I… I… c’mon, man, please, I…”

            “I said it before.  I’m not getting involved.  Look, I… know it sucks living here like you have to.  I’ve had to be down there too sometimes.  And I’m not going to add anymore to what happens to you here.  But this is what happens when you have to actually stand for the things you do,” Kyle continued before loudly ruffling the pages of his magazine and inching it closer to his face.  A frown seemed permanently etched into his face, almost forced, and his voice had quavered slightly; he was clearly not used to having to speak so aggressively to the brother he once so admired.  “Can you please leave me alone now?”

            Heart sunken just about as thoroughly as it could be, Scott quietly ambled back toward the door.

            “Scott,” came the hesitant voice behind him just as he was about to exit.  The twelve-inch delinquent peered back over his shoulder.

            “Listen, um… if they do stuff to you, and don’t give you your clothes back when they’re done… you know, I’ll get you some,” Kyle drawled, still with some bitterness in his words.  “They’d… give you clothes in jail.”

            “Okay,” Scott said with a nod, unable to keep a smile from forming.  “Thanks.”

            “But that’s all,” he answered as his eyes returned to the magazine spread while he thumbed over a page.

            Though pessimistically hopeful of this last comment by his brother, Scott knew the issue of the phone was all but decided, then.  If he wanted that call, Maggie was the only viable and willing outlet.  He couldn’t even be sure she’d keep her word, but as she was the closest thing he had at this point for the slimmest chance, it was a risk worth taking, no matter how sickening it ended up being having to pay it back.

            And then there was also the small matter of Nancy.  Scott had almost mentioned her demand to Judy several times the day before in a state of confused humiliation and half-hearted arousal, and finally, for reasons he was too ashamed to confront in himself just yet, resolved to stay silent on it for the time being.  He hated to think what it said about him, but at this point, he figured there was very little he could do to get himself lower, physically or otherwise.

            As he wandered around the house, savoring his bittersweet alone time, Scott clambered up onto the couch and was pleasantly surprised to find the remote control sitting on the cushion.  It was a royal pain having to hit the button on the TV if it wasn’t already in his reach, and Maggie took a certain delight in placing the remote up on the mantel when she was finished watching to prevent those shorter than her knees from using it, but apparently whoever had last used it had forgotten.  Just hoping to distract himself for a brief time, Scott pressed a fist into the power button and began flipping through the channels.

            As he skipped through the numbers faster than he could process the flashing images, he found himself suddenly pausing with an odd paralysis when the channel stopped on a recycled broadcast from a CNN report earlier in the morning, with a picture of a man leaning against a marble desktop.

            “No new developments on the search for Walter Brandon after the altercation he entered with police at his Chicago penthouse yesterday before fleeing the scene,” the anchor read from the teleprompter while adjusting her glasses.  “However, we are now getting more on the information we received this morning from Cambralart Financials as they attempt to get back on their feet.  Though we don’t have an official statement yet, we are hearing reports that Brandon, one of the firm’s top financiers, had personally defrauded an amount of one hundred and seventeen million dollars, putting the company itself at likely risk for criminal investigation as well.”

            The words meant nothing to Scott.  He hadn’t heard of the man and had only heard of the corporation in passing before, yet something else stayed his hand from flipping the channel again.

            It was the picture of Walter that had remained frozen onscreen.  Something in the parting of the silvery blonde hair, the curve of the jawline, the shape of the nose, or the cold blue steel of the eyes.  He couldn’t place it, but Scott knew he recognized the face.  Yet the name made it impossible to connect to any specific memory.

            Unblinking, he leaned forward on the cushion, his mouth hanging open slightly.

            “Taking a little break, honey?” came the voice of Judy that somehow managed to boom in his eardrums and still sing like a whisper.  As she spoke, her fingers stroked gently down her son’s back to get his attention while she leaned over the couch back.

            Scott jumped at her touch, incredibly shaken by the sudden volume and nearness of his mother.

            Even though he was at his maximum height, he was generally fairly adept at sensing his oncoming family members due to the reverberations in the carpet from their feet and the small breeze created by their walking pace.  Admittedly, it was a skill that he knew had saved him on more than one occasion from additional work because he had enough warning to duck under a bed or behind a dresser.  How in the hell had she managed to get right behind him without so much as a creak of the floor?

            “Y-Yes!” he peeped nervously, clutching a hand to his heart.  Judy’s fingers ran a second time down his back, this time more slowly to soothe him after such a start.

            “Didn’t mean to scare you,” Judy chuckled warmly.  “You just looked so absorbed.”

            “I got everything done.  I promise.  It all looks good.  The house,” he gasped defensively.

            “Mm-hmm.  I’m sure it’s fine,” Judy said, glancing quickly around the living room and nodding at the sight of the dusted tabletops.  With a wink, she added: “We’ll take a tour around later just to make sure, though.”

            “Right.  Sure,” Scott confirmed.  “Is… is something wrong?”

            “Wrong?  No, not at all.  Got all my calls taken care of for now.  Everything’s going well,” Judy said, straightening back to a full standing position and placing her hands on her hips as she squinted intently at the TV screen.

            There was a twitch in her eyelid that Scott only noticed because he was standing just below her, but it was undeniable.

            “Mom?” Scott chanced after almost a full minute of silence from the pair of them while the TV rambled on with the brief recap on Walter Brandon’s crimes from the day before.

            “Everything’s going really well,” Judy repeated, finally pulling her eyes away from the TV as she leaned back over the couch and brushed Scott’s fist out of the way with her pointer finger to click the power button again, blackening the image of the man’s face.

            “Oh.  Um, good,” Scott coughed quietly, more confused even than he’d been when trying to decipher Walter’s identity on the screen.

            “So,” sighed Judy with relief, returning her full focus onto her son as he crouched nervously on the cushion below her.  Her fingertips found their way back to the top of his head and began playfully twirling at his hair.  “I’ve got a new job for you, honey.”

            “Okay,” Scott said with a shrug, already resigned to this from the time she’d returned to the room.  “Should I go grab a rag or something?”

            “Not… exactly,” the Stevens matriarch answered with a sly smirk as she splayed an index finger thoughtfully against her cheek.  The warm hand that had been petting the top of Scott’s head slid gently down to his torso and wrapped itself around his chest, which the young man obliged for the most comfortable ride possible by raising his arms as his mother lifted him off the cushion.  Her fingertips tapped amiably at his shoulder blades.  “First things first, though.  We’re going to need to get you into some different clothes.”