I'm impressed with the way you approached writing your story! At first I thought, "Is he confusing some other prompt with this wewrite story?" LOL
It's really inventive and imaginative.
On the thumping down the stairs thing, I took Nathan's reason for jumping not so much that he was startled by it, but because he'd heard it so often that it's become like fingernails on a chalkboard, so the jump is more like a very animated cringe.
I picked up from the prompt that Nathan either had no father, or he wasn't around, and Nathan and his mom were the only residents at the house.
Thank you for such an attentive reading!
This story went a little weird. But once I started I decided just to go along with it.
About the stamping on the stairs. To me, it was the question of who made the sound? Was it Nathan's mom? That's possible. But for a single mom to have a two-story house? I am cringing a little. Then again she might have inherit it from her parents. So it is a second possibility. :)
Sometimes weird is good 🙂
Personally, I imagined them living in kind of generic American suburbs, where a single mom with a two-story house isn't that unusual. It depends where you are in the world, I suppose.
I am in California, Los Angeles where a house like this cost a million dollars. :)
Wow, that's a lot. In my part of New England a good two-story is more like $200,000. I've even seen apartments with multiple stories.
I've never been to New England. Two bedroom house at 200K. That's amazing. Our little studio in Miami cost more than that. Anyhow, even with 10% down the loan for such house will be 190 k and the payments somewhere around 1k per month. Add to it, taxes and insurance and poor single mom got herself payments of close to 2k per month. Add to it $500 for food, $300 utilities, $300 medical insurance, $300 car payments, $300 gas then clothes, $200 house repairs, plus all kinds of deductibles and copayments, chid expenses, some other expenses, and her total monthly payments will be over 4k per month. For that, she needs to make, at least, 50k per year, while in 2017 the nominal median income per capita was $31,786. Kind of tough for a single mom.
I resolved it in the story though with a clean slate, assuming that she inherited the house free and clear from her parents. :)