Mai watched the cab drive away. She thought she ought to be in it, the ride was paid for and a lot more. Then she turned around and looked at the room, and Decimus. It was a real mess, and creepy. Then she looked again more carefully. It wasn't creepy, exactly, just dirty and dark and littered. And huge. She had never been in a room so large, that belonged to a single person that is.
It had a fireplace, with a lot of ashes in it, and chandelers hanging from the ceiling, one at each end. Decimus was in the stuffed leather chair next to the fireplace. There were a lot more of them. She stood between the fireplace and Decimus and the door, moving her head around, gawking, eyes open, mouth open. She had never imagined this. This place needed cleaning, even by her standards.
She walked over to Decimus' chair.
"Can I get you anything? A glass of water? Anything?"
"Can I look around? Will you be all right for a little while?"
"I'm a lot better than I have been. Yeah, make yourself at home. First floor dining room, parlor, kitchen, and a few other things. Second floor bedrooms and a couple of sitting rooms. Top floor servants quarters."
"I want to look in the kitchen first."
"You won't like it. There isn't anything to eat. Nothing. I haven't been in there for weeks, I think. Just throw it all away."
Mai went in the direction indicated. It was as bad as Decimus had said. It smelled, a really bad smell. She had seen some things in her short life, but nothing quite like this. She suddenly felt less incompetent. She could do something about this. Even not knowing anything, she could do something. She started by throwing food into a plastic bag. That took a while. She opened windows. Good thing it was warm weather, although she would have done it anyway.
"Where does garbage go? Does it get picked up?"
"Damned if I know. I'm supposed to have a cook. I've seen big plastic cans at the curb, but I don't remember which days."
"What happened to the cook? When does she come?"
"Just disappeared. People and things seem to disappear around here. I don't know when I saw the cook last."
"What do you mean disappeared?"
"I mean they just don't show up any more. I don't know any more than that."
Mai took the bags of rotten food outside, parking them beside the curb. She would look for the large plastic garbage containers later. She went back in the kitchen, hoping to find something maybe frozen or canned. She didn't.
Then she found a second freezer and it had frozen dinners in it. She went back into the parlor.
"I found some frozen dinners in a second freezer. Does that sound like something you might be able to eat?"
"Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. Thanks. You're doing a lot of work for your room and board. I'd say you were hired for something."
"Thanks. It'll be a while. I'll have to wash some dishes."
From the psych ward to the kitchen in under a day. But she was taking in the word hire. She was actually working, legitimate work, not sex work. And she was doing it without drugs. That was new, real new. It felt good in a scary sort of way. She couldn't help worrying that the hammer would come down sometime, that she would be sent away, or slapped around, or some previous terror would return. But as she found things, and loaded the dishwasher, and continued sorting and cleaning she felt her spirits lighten. She didn't recognize it at first, but there wasn't anybody yelling at her, threatening her, or criticizing her.
She checked up on Decimus. He had nodded off. She put the frozen meals in the oven and set the table in the kitchen, then wondered if he could make it to the kitchen. They wouldn't release him from the hospital if he couldn't walk, would they? Then her critical thinking came back and her mind told her that they would and did do that. She turned off the oven and went to ask Decimus.
"Decimus, I've got lunch ready in the kitchen. Can you make it there? Do you need help?"
He made another stop first. She would have to remember about all that, at least for a while. She walked with him, her arm close but not actually touching him. He did OK, a little shaky, but he made it by himself. She was really grateful for that. She had done a lot of undressing in her time, but never with someone as old and weak as Decimus. She didn't feel the same way about it at all.
Lunch passed. While Decimus was still in the kitchen, she cleaned off one of the couches and helped him to it. He went to sleep on it, his over coat for a blanket.
Mai went looking around the first floor. The dining room hadn't been used in a while. It was dusty. The whole downstairs looked like nobody had done anything in quite a while. There weren't any bedrooms on the ground floor. She found Decimus' bedroom on the second floor, but she could tell he hadn't used it in a long time. So where had he slept? On the couch, she supposed. He seemed to expect that after lunch.
What was it with all those servants he had? Had they ever done anything? She would ask him about that after his nap. They might have quite a conversation after his nap, if he was up to it.
She felt more and more confident as the day went on. Nothing like being completely alone to help a girl feel like she was in charge of something, responsible for something. Nobody telling her what to do, nobody bitching about what she did, who she was, what she wasn't doing. Just silence. She could feel her own mind slowly coming back to life from hibernation. That could all change in seconds if anything like the old life returned, but as long as it didn't, it felt good.
Nap finished and afternoon advancing they had their conversation. There were supposed to be three house cleaners, coming three days a week, sometimes a different one each day, sometimes the same one all three days, sometimes nobody at all for one day, sometimes nobody at all for a week at a time.
They came from a service company, who got paid by automatic withdrawal from his credit card. Decimus had lost track of that in the last weeks before his hospitalization. He didn't remember exactly how it worked. He hadn't seen his credit card statement for a long time now. He had been sick for weeks, gradually getting worse, until the postman finally called the police and he ended up in an ambulance.
In the course of the conversation, their positions gradually became a bit more defined. She would not only live there, she would supervise the work of others there. This terrified her, and thrilled her at the same time. But that would have to be how it worked. Decimus couldn't supervise, at least not for a long time, and without close supervision, nothing would happen except theft, in case there was still anything small enough to steal in the house.
After the conversation, Mai went upstairs and looked in all the bedrooms. She tried the keys Decimus gave her on all the doors, and eventually made it to the third floor, the so-called servants quarters.
There were four bedrooms snuggled under the roof. They were small, rather poorly furnished, but adequate, she supposed. She wondered if she would have one of them. She thought now, they hadn't been occupied in a number of years and it looked like the heat had been turned off for this floor. Why heat the whole floor for one bedroom when there are several on the second floor, including the master bedroom, which Decimus might occupy eventually.
For that matter, there was an entire second wing, on the other side of the entrance. It was closed off. She didn't even try to go into that half of the house. That would be for another day. She had other things to do this evening.
Decimus needed a bedroom on the first floor. He wasn't up to climbing stairs and there wasn't an elevator. At least she hadn't found one. Decimus confirmed that.
"We could put in an elevator," he said.
"That sounds expensive."
"So what? I live here. This is my home. If I wanted to live somewhere else I could, but I don't want to. My relatives want this house for their own and the easiest argument I have against that is to live here myself. I would do it just to spite them. I would sleep on the couch for the rest of my life just to spite them. So I want to get an elevator installed if we need one."
"How? I have never bought a coffee pot. How in Hell am I supposed to manage installing an elevator?"
"I haven't the slightest idea. That's why you have to do it. Not right away. No hurry. Take your time and do it right."
"It will cost thousands and thousands of dollars?"
"I don't care. I have thousands and thousands of dollars. What I don't have is a bedroom. I want an elevator. You will get me one. Please," he added as an afterthought.