Moving Day

[Anna Fernandez]

Santiago Fernandez leaned on the dilapidated three foot chain link fence that partially lined the front yard while his wife, Teresa, took a photograph of him. "Mi novia, please..." The fence started to give under his weight, and he stumbled before he was able to slow the fence in time using his ability.

A giggle behind him made him turn around, and he saw Anna, his daughter, on the front porch. "Papa, try not to break everything! I just bought the place."

He sniffed, gesturing at the three story house. "I do not know that you would be able to tell if I did break everything - oof!" Teresa passed by him, seemingly oblivious to the bump she'd just given him, and put her arm around Anna where they met on the lawn. Together they faced the patriarch of the Fernandez family.

"Santiago, por favor, que es su sueño." She squeezed Anna's shoulder, the young woman's excitement infectious.

"As long as Alonso is going to make sure the repairs are done. I saw the inspection!" He pushed off of the fence and then returned it to normal speed, giving it a shove back into place. He had the ability to affect an object's placement in time - speeding it up or slowing it down - with the caveat that such an object became effectively invulnerable. That was, at least, he had yet to find something that could tear a piece of slowed down paper, and when he was young he had fast-timed himself into the side of a tree and knocked it over. The mistakes of the young. He turned and watched Anna pull the For Sale sign out of the front yard next to him while his wife took more pictures.

"Come here, Papa!" Anna put out her hand to him and he walked over, putting his arm around her and smiling at her while she held the dislodged sign and Teresa clicked away. She was so grown up, this girl of his, and there was nothing he could do to slow that down. He kissed her hair, his eyes suddenly misty.

[Anna Fernandez]

Anna leaned into her father's chest for a moment, until the sign in her hand slipped from where she had it braced against the sidewalk and she was forced to grab it with both hands. She laughed, hefting its weight and dragging it up the driveway to the garage. "Thank you again for coming!" She dropped the sign in front of the door and then half-ran half-skipped to the front door.

"I already unlocked it," she confessed, giving the key the realtor had handed her this morning a little shake.

"Then open it!" Santiago smiled, then frowned as he stepped up onto the porch and the wooden deck creaked ominously.

Anna mugged for her mother's camera, and turned the knob, pushing the door open. "Look, isn't it great?" Dust filtered through the air, and the immediately visible wall had an obscene gang tag spray painted onto it. "Argh," she stopped just inside the door, shoulders slumping. "I thought the house was securely locked up."

Santiago followed her inside, his shoulders stiffening, but he said nothing as he turned and looked at the front door. It was a new solid wood door sitting on old hinges with a good lock on it. The inner doorframe was splintered where the police had battered their way through the old door in the drug raid that had ultimately made the house available on the market.

Teresa patted Anna on the back. "We were going to paint all the walls anyway." The whole house smelled like cigarette smoke, so the expensive odor blocking primer was going to go on every paintable surface, along with tearing out the stained carpets. "Alonso will be here soon and he and Papa will check all the doors and windows so we can fix whatever is broken."

Their daughter nodded slowly, and then straightened up. "Yes, yes. Of course. The graffiti wasn't there when we did the inspection but you're right. And I'm not staying overnight until all the windows are replaced anyway."

"And we get an alarm system installed," rumbled her father, who was already walking in front of her into the kitchen.

[Alonso Fernandez]

A rust red pickup truck rattled down Banyon Street, the two occupants straining to read the house numbers. "Five-four-oh?" Antonio Fernandez, sixteen and finally hitting his growth spurt, called out as they passed another house. "Was that it?"

"Look for Papa's car," said Alonso, slowing and stopping at a cross street. "Should be this block...?"

"There it is!" called out his youngest brother, pointing excitedly. "I can't believe she bought this heap." Alonso looked sideways at Antonio, who shrugged and said, "What, it's a heap. Call a spade a spade, or something, or a rose by any other name is still a crappy drug house."

"Just watch it around Anna." Alonso pulled into the driveway and put the truck into park. "Looks like you can get to work mowing the lawn right away." He grinned at his brother's face, and stepped out of the truck, slamming the door to make sure it latched.

Tonio bounded up the steps to the front door, banging open the screen and letting himself in while Alonso followed.

"Hey, big bro, it's even better than I imagined. Urban art!" Antonio posed, throwing up what he imagined was a gang sign in front of the tagged wall until Alonso hip checked him into it. "Oof!"

"Hey hermanita​," Alonso said, giving Anna a hug. "Congratulations!"

[Anna Fernandez]

"Gracias," Anna grinned, wiggling out of the brotherly embrace and shaking her head at Tonio, who was also getting a disapproving look from their mother. He wilted under the feminine pressure and said something about checking out upstairs before bounding up the steps. She turned back to Alonso. "Stephanie doing okay?"

"Sí, sí, she is fine. Barely showing." He smiled back, and looked around the living room. "Did this house get bigger?"

"No!" She put her hands on her hips. "It is pretty big though." For a moment the enormity of her task loomed over her, but she quickly defeated the mental spectre with optimism. "I already have the business plan in place and it's being approved pending the completion of bringing this monster up to code."

"Not a problem, sis," Alonso said. "Papa was going to help me measure the windows?"

Santiago nodded, brandishing a tape measure, and the two set to work on the closest ones - the beautiful bay window that faced the street. Well, it would be beautiful, once the cracked glass was replaced. Anna would have liked to replace all the windows with double paned energy efficient glass, but it was just too expensive. The broken ones would be swapped out for new, single pane glass. It was the best she could afford and still be able to refinish the hardwood floors and replace the busted trim and fix up the kitchen. The kitchen was the most expensive part of the remodel she was doing, but it was necessary because, as her mother often said, the kitchen is the heart of the home.

Anna looked up to see her mother watching her thoughtfully as Papa and Alonso joked in the corner of the room, one measuring and the other writing on a pad of paper. She smiled. "What?"

Teresa shook her head, that mysterious motherly expression on her face. "Nada. Should we get started?" She waggled a pair of yellow rubber gloves. "Those walls aren't going to wipe themselves down."

[Anna Fernandez]

It was a whole month later, and Anna turned the key in the lock, opening the door to her house. To the house of second chances, Redenćion House. She looked over her shoulder as a low slung car eased by down the street, the bass pounding loud enough to rattle the neighbors' windows. The house had passed it's last inspection, and her non profit business was up and running.

Figuratively speaking, that was. She stepped over the threshold into the smell of fresh paint and limes, the afternoon sun slanting in from across the street through the living room curtains. The whole big house was hers, though it's emptiness made her victory feel a bit hollow.

In the kitchen she trailed her fingertips along the granite countertops her brothers had pitched in to buy for her, and spent a moment staring out the window over the sink into the barren backyard. She pictured apple trees to join the existing citrus tree, and a big garden for the future, the at-risk kids she planned to host learning how to contribute and give back in tangible, edible ways. It was too late to plant this year, but she'd already sketched out a rough plan on a piece of graph paper. Anna sighed, looking around at the big wooden bowl of limes that decorated the island, picked from the backyard tree.

It all felt a little anti-climactic. Her friend in social services had warned that it might take weeks for teens to appear who would benefit from what Redenćion House had to offer, and certainly Anna hadn't expected a full house on the first night. In fact, now that everything was ready and just... waiting... her heart fluttered a bit thinking about it. Not nervous, exactly... just not not nervous.

Dinner was a quick affair of beans and rice eaten at the counter, punctuated by the occasional thump of a too-loud sound system driving by. Her house was in Tres Onces territory, though she really didn't know exactly what that entailed. Officer Morales of the LAPD had assured her that the gang was more bark than bite, more like a social club for wannabes than anything else. She hoped he was right.

[Old Joe]

Los Santos wasn't much of a friendly place, but it was where Joe was. Youth was wasted on the young, he thought, as a pair of kids on skateboards whizzed past Joe's slow feet. It was different than New York, or Atlanta or New Orleans or Denver, or even it's northern neighbor, San Francisco. New York had towers that reached for the sky, but Los Santos was broader than a flooded Mississippi.

He was tired, and it was getting dark. Joe was always tired these days. He stopped and sat, while a warm wind blew a flyer through the alley that obscured the dropping sun.

A safe place for troubled youth, it implied. Joe felt troubled, and youth was overrated in his estimation. All that energy and hormones and chasing after each other clumsily for a good time between sheets. The house was outlined on a map, complete with address and even a phone number. The phone number was a brave thing, in his estimation. Some of people's greatest fears were born through the telephone. He took a swig of everclear and winced as it burned down his throat. No matter how many years or times, it always burned on the way down to the big pit of empty.

It was 10:13 PM, Pacific time, but Joe didn't know that. Joe never knew what time it was, only if it was comfortable or not. He only knew that it was dark and that he didn't want to walk anymore.

Joe knocked on the door with the apprehension of someone who expected disappointment.

[Anna Fernandez]

Anna started at the sound of a knock at the door, setting aside her book with a hurriedly placed marker. She got up from the couch and walked to the front door, her heart suddenly in her throat. It was probably Alonso, bringing ...something. Or maybe a neighbor. She wiped her hands on her jeans and then unlocked the deadbolt, pulling the door open, the rickety screen door between her and her late night visitor. "Hello?"

[Old Joe]

Joe was startled when Anna actually answered the door.

"Do you have a place where I might rest these old bones?" He asked. His breath smelled faintly of cheap booze, and he was dirty. He didn't reek like most people who were unfortunate enough to be sleeping under the stars, but Joe would be the first to admit he wasn't clean.