Lost (25 page)

“I don’t think we’re doing it right!” I
told Sam as we looked at the coals I had dumped on the grill.

“Mom,
you
told me this is how it was supposed to be done.” Sam was frustrated.

I was peering
at the little pictures on my phone. “That’s what it says here. But it never
took Dad this long.”

The afternoon
had been relatively quiet. True to his word, Joe had called about an hour after
he left, and he’d been able to give me an exact figure for the flooring—$1800,
which was right about what insurance priced a replacement floor. I had finished
putting away all my clothes and had been able to enjoy my magazine and an iced
tea before Sam brought the girls home. About an hour later all the kids were
back, and we were trying to figure out how to light the grill.

“Yeah. Well,
Dad knew what he was doing.” Sam stood there with his arms crossed over his
chest.

“Oh! OH! Look.
Coals are turning red!” Finally, it was moving along. I smacked Sam lightly on
the shoulder. “Told you we’d figure it out.”

“Mom? Is dinner
almost ready?” Carey stuck his head out the back door and asked. He had a date
with Lessa tonight, and he was antsy.

“What’s the
plan?” I asked him.

“We were just
gonna go see a movie. Maybe
Iron Man 3
,” he told me.

“Oohh! Can we
go? Please, Carey!” Maggie begged her older brother, who did not look happy
with the idea.

I stepped in.
“No, sweetie. Carey’s going on a date. I’ll take you sometime soon, okay?”

The girls
looked disappointed but nodded their agreement.

I fished $20
out of my pocket and handed it to Carey. “Here. Go grab some burgers at the
food court or something. I didn’t think it would take this long.”

He grabbed it
and kissed me on the cheek before running back in the house. “Cool! Thanks,
Mom!” He yelled as he ran out the door.

“Alright, I
think we need to let these sit for a bit, then I can put the burgers on.” Sam
put the cover back on the grill and sat down with the girls at the picnic
table.

“Anyone want a
drink?” I asked. “I cut up some fruit.”

“Can I have a
Coke?” Jessie asked.

Sam, Maggie,
and Jimmy agreed, and I went to get the fruit and some drinks for everyone. After
I brought them out, we all sat around, and the kids told me about their day.

Apparently,
Karie wears a rather small bathing suit, and Sam really appreciates it—I got
this from the girls, not Sam. The girls approved of Sam dating her though,
because she wasn’t like the other girl Sam took to the park last year who rode
on nothing and didn’t want to get her hair wet—no one can remember her name,
and Sam wasn’t giving it up.

“Nope, Karie
just put her hair up and dove right in,” Jessie told me.

“Yeah, I think
Sam wanted her top to fall off,” Maggie laughed.

Sam shot her a
look. “No such thing. You two monkeys behave.”

I laughed.

“Okay.” I
interrupted after a bit more banter. “Let’s put the burgers on. Sam get it
ready, and I’ll go get them.”

Jimmy rubbed
his hands together. “Finally!”

“Hey, maybe if
you’d caught something, we could be having fish,” Sam teased him, as I went
into the house.

45 minutes later, everyone agreed that
the burgers, if not as good as Brian used to make, were pretty tasty. I was just
happy we figured out the grill. In all the years we’d been together, all the
times we’d grilled outside, I don’t think I paid attention once to what Brian
did. He always did his thing, and about 40 minutes later, we had a tasty
burger. It’s just one more way we had to adjust to life as a party of six, as
opposed to a party of seven—learning to man the grill.

The kids were
still sitting on the patio, though I think they were now spitting watermelon
seeds into the yard. Apparently Jimmy was beating Sam, and the girls were
cheering Jimmy on.

“Excuse me! Who
took you to the water park today?
Not
Jimmy!” Sam reminded them.

The comment
stopped the girls in their tracks. Jimmy was usually the most patient with
them. On the other hand, Sam could drive and took them places. The girls looked
at each other, and something unspoken passed between them.

“Go, Sam!”
Maggie yelled.

“Come on,
Jimmy!” Jessie chimed in.

“That’s more
like it,” Sam muttered, and I just shook my head, as I brought in dirty plates
and glasses.

The revelry
continued for at least another hour, before the girls started to complain of
being tired.

“Okay. Let’s
wrap this up,” I told them, standing up. “Guys, let’s bring in the fruit bowl.”

The boys
gathered whatever was left outside, and I took the girls in to get them ready
for bed.

Teeth brushed
and hair combed, the girls climbed into their beds. Jessie pulled her pink
quilt up to her nose and looked at me with sleepy eyes.

“The burgers
came out good, Mommy,” she told me.

Maggie’s purple
quilt was already askew, and I set about straightening it. “They were almost as
good as Daddy’s,” she told me.

I smiled at
them in the faint light and bent to kiss one head, and then the other. “Almost
as good as Daddy’s? I’ll take that.”

“Okay. Night,
Mommy,” Jessie muttered, already half asleep.

“Love you,”
Maggie said as she drifted off.

“Night, baby
girls. I love you too,” I told them as softly as I shut their door.

I went
downstairs to clean up the kitchen a bit more and make sure all the doors were
locked. Truth be told, despite what happened to our house while we were away, I
didn’t feel scared. I wasn’t worried, but I wasn’t going to invite issues
either.

I went into the
kitchen and finished putting the dishes in the dishwasher. I wiped down the
counter, and then went over to the back door—locked up tight. Carey had a key
to the front door, so I checked the garage door—down. And I locked the door in
the kitchen that led to the garage. Then I turned off the kitchen light. I
decided to just leave a light on in the living room, and the porch light of
course. Front door checked and locked.

I yawned as I
made my way upstairs. I wasn’t looking forward to another night in the bottom
bunk, and I couldn’t wait for my new mattress to be delivered. It wouldn’t come
soon enough. I had extra sheets, but my comforter and duvet cover had been
ruined. So rather than scour the mall, I opted to just order new ones from The
Company Store. They had been delivered the day before and were sitting in the
chair in my room waiting.

I made my way
into Jimmy’s room. He was reading in his old lazy boy.

“Hi, Mom. Mind
if I read for a while?”

“Of course not,
sweetie. It’s your room. Thanks for letting me bunk with you,” I told him as I
crawled into bed.

“No problem.”
He put his book down. “Have the police said anything, Mom?”

I pulled the
covers up over my legs and leaned against the headboard. “Not yet. Detective
Jeffries has been great about calling to let me know what’s going on.
Unfortunately, nothing much
is
going on. It sounds like they’ve run into
a dead end.”

“Do you think
it was personal? Like someone that didn’t like us, or maybe someone that didn’t
like Dad?” Jimmy simply asked the question. There was no fear in his voice,
rather he just wanted to know my thoughts.

“Honestly,
Jimmy, I don’t know. Your Dad was almost 40. I’m almost 40. It would be
ridiculous to think that somewhere along the way we didn’t piss someone off. On
the other hand, whoever broke into our house did a lot of damage. So I won’t go
on record and say that we never made an enemy, but I don’t think we made an
enemy that disliked us this much.”

“So you think
it was a random thing? Just bad luck?” Jimmy pushed.

I thought about
it a minute before answering, determined not to just placate the kids. “I do.
The house sat empty for a week, it’s summer, and I think it was a crime of
opportunity. Nothing was really stolen. I think someone broke in and had their
idea of fun.”

Jimmy shook his
head. “Some people are really screwed up.”

I smiled at our
son. “Some people really
are
screwed up, babe.”

He smiled back
at me and went back to his book. I laid down and stared at the bottom of the
top bunk. A part of me actually believed what I told Jimmy. I really didn’t
think there was anyone out there that hated me, or Brian for that matter, that
much. But as I closed my eyes, I couldn’t get one thing out of my mind.

The pictures.
Maybe someone
did
hate me that much.

I peeled my eyes open and winced.
Jimmy’s bed was not comfortable, and my aging back was telling me that over and
over again. I looked at the alarm clock on Jimmy’s nightstand—3:15.

God!

My throat felt
like I had swallowed a tube sock. I decided to drag myself out of bed. I made
my way downstairs and saw my van in the driveway. Carey had gotten home and
locked up. I didn’t bother turning on the kitchen light. There was enough
illumination from the moon outside. I grabbed a glass out of the dish rack and
got some water, and then decided to take something to help me sleep.

After Brian
died, Dr. Holt, the therapist we saw, wanted to prescribe something to help me
sleep. I was tossing and turning all night and barely able to function during
the day. But I had asked him to recommend something over-the-counter first. He
suggested I try Unisom. It worked for my allergies too, but it took the edge
off and allowed me to relax so that I could fall asleep. I hadn’t taken one in
months, but the bottom bunk was making it tough for me to sleep, so I dug out
the bottle.

Out of the
corner of my eye I saw something. My head shot up, and I looked out into the
backyard. The wind had picked up sometime during the night, and it looked like
a summer storm was blowing in. The bushes that I really needed to tend do at
the fence line were whipping about.

There!

In the back,
almost hidden among the trees, something moved. I leaned forward and put my
hand on the window pane, and something, no, someone stood up. I dropped the
bottle and took a step back, my hand going to my mouth to stifle any sound I
made.

Though the moon
was out, that part of the backyard was shrouded in night, and I couldn’t see
anything other than an outline. I stood still, not moving, and whoever or
whatever was in my backyard did the same. I could feel it watching me. I
started to shake.

The shape took
a step forward, and I took a step back.

“No!” I forced
out of my dry throat, and I shook my head, snapping out of whatever hold the
shape had on me. I rushed to the back door to make sure that it was locked. It
was. I ran back over to the sink so I could look out the window.

The figure
hadn’t moved. It was still standing in my yard. My inability to see anything
made it all the more menacing, and I struggled to control my breathing.

The shape came
closer still.

I had used a
large knife to cut the fruit during dinner, so I picked it up from the drainer.

“Please, God.
Please.” Silent tears rolled down my cheeks. I was terrified.

I struggled to
remember if I had taken my cell phone upstairs with me, and then, suddenly, the
figure moved.

His or her or
its head flew to the side, as if it’d heard something. It stood like this for a
minute, and then slowly turned back to face the house. I saw an arm raise and a
finger point—directly at me. I choked on a sob.

And then the
shape turned, jumped over the fence, and was gone.

I dropped the
knife in the sink and struggled to control my breathing.

Our back fence
was almost nine feet high.

Morning didn’t come soon enough. After
the “incident” as I had been calling it the past few hours, I couldn’t get back
to sleep. Instead, I laid in Jimmy’s bed with my eyes closed, debating.

Should I call
the police? Was it a figment of my exhausted imagination? Was it some stupid
kid’s idea of a joke? Was it the person that broke into our house coming back
for more? Was it something else, and I was completely off in my speculation?
Should I go sleep on the couch because Jimmy’s bed sucks?

In the end, I
opted not to call the police. I worked hard to convince myself that it was my
imagination. I mean seriously, who could jump a nine foot fence? I seriously
doubt an NBA player was hanging out in my backyard, in the dark, getting his
rocks off by scaring me. I hadn’t been sleeping well the last few nights. I was
groggy, and no doubt I was just seeing shadows—a trick of the moonlight. A
tree. Something!

Secure with my
decision, I crawled out of bed and slid to the floor.

Oh, my
fucking back is killing me.

I needed to get
Jimmy a new mattress, immediately. How did he sleep on that thing?

I twisted and
turned trying to get the knots out and was surprised to find that I wasn’t
completely exhausted. My mattress was being delivered later in the day, so
hopefully I was in for a good night’s sleep!

After a quick
shower, I popped my head into the kids’ rooms. Everyone was still passed out,
and I left them there. I crept downstairs to get some coffee, and maybe a bowl
of fruit. I popped in a K-Cup and made a mental note to get some more coffee—I
was sure Costco sold them. I dug the sugar and creamer out of the pantry and
got a bowl to put some fruit in.

I took a sip of
my coffee and closed my eyes, savoring the taste. The events of early morning
completely forgotten, I decided to take my breakfast outside and enjoy the
peace and quiet.