The Timekeeper

Chapter Sixteen

"How was community service today, Jase?" Kath asked as she cleared the plates off the table.

I was surprised she had brought it up, honestly. I hadn't thought Jase would tell his family that he was stuck doing community service, or the reasons why he was doing it. I figured he hadn't told them the entire story, since I was sure they didn't know he was a commonly seen face with the police.

"Wasn't too bad. I'm almost finished as well," he said proudly.

"Really? It feels like you only just started yesterday," I said, stunned.

"They're pretty pleased with me and my behaviour. They said I've changed a lot since I walked into the building on the first day."

He looked at me then, a little spark in his eyes. I knew they were right; he really had changed dramatically over the past couple of weeks. I felt somewhat responsible for his change, and felt a little guilty about it. I remember what he had said to me outside the police station, that I couldn't change him. And he had been right; I couldn't change him. He had to change himself, and that's exactly what he did. I think the homeless shelter was the main influence towards his change, though, which made me feel a lot happier.

"Well I'm very proud of you, Jase," Kath grinned, and you could tell that she really meant it, too.

After we helped do some of the dishes, even when Kath insisted she didn't need any help, we walked into the living room where Isabel sat at the small wooden coffee table. I couldn't exactly see what she was doing, but her face was filled with great concentration. As I moved to kneel next to her, I noticed she was drawing. It was a typical type of seven-year old drawing; and it reminded me of a painting my mother showed me that I had drawn when I was around the age of six.

There was a circle with a smiley face inside it, though the circle also seemed to be the body. Stick arms and legs stuck out the sides of its head, and it had bright yellow hair sitting atop it as well. I tried not to laugh, though it was hard not to. It seemed like all children this age had the same image of people in their heads, and they apparently didn't have a separate head to their body. Maybe that's how they saw people in the world, and wouldn't that be interesting.

I looked over my shoulder, only to notice that the space Jase had just been occupying was now vacant. I wasn't sure where we went, or when he even left, but I didn't want to follow him around like a lost puppy. I made myself comfortable beside Isabel, grabbing one of the spare sheets of paper spread across the table, and a coloured marker.

"What are you drawing there, Isabel?" I asked, trying to start up a simple conversation.

"My family," she replied, as though I should have already known what she was drawing.

I began scribbling around the edges of the paper, not entirely sure what I was going to draw. This had been happening to me quite a lot recently. I had once been able to pick up a blank piece of paper and know what I wanted to draw almost instantly, but now, it was as though my mind was too jumbled to be able to put together a solid image to transfer onto paper.

"What are you drawing?" Isabel asked me then, taking her eyes off her own work and gazing at mine.

"I'm not sure," I smiled at her. "What do you think I should draw?"

She was silent for a moment, her lips pursed and her eyes gazing away. She looked so much like her mother that it was almost freaky; I had even thought I saw a tiny bit of Jase in her, but it seemed to vanish as soon as she turned her attention back to me.

"You should draw Jase! We can both draw him!" She said excitedly. If only she knew how many times I had tried to draw him already.

We worked silently, side by side, nothing but the TV and the sound of markers sliding across paper filled the room. I had never actually tried to draw with markers before; my more preferred tool was the granite pencil. I had tried to experiment with charcoal once, but it just turned into a smudged mess. The marker was a lot thicker than what I was used to with a pencil, but it didn't smudge when my hand ran over the paper, which happened to me quite frequently.