Don't Go In Alone

MONDAY NOVEMBER 18

Since Zach is only in kindergarten, he's out of school earlier than I am. Mom generally has her schedule work around this, so she can pick him up from school and hang out at the house until I get home. On the days it doesn't work out, he goes home with his friend and gets dropped off a few hours after I'm out of school.

But there are days when Mom has work and his friend isn't an option. On those days, he stays at the school for the extra couple of hours with a group of kids who also don't have a way of getting home until after the full school day ends. On those days, we walk home together.

Monday is one of those days.

Zach bounces excitedly down the sidewalk. I've somehow wound up carrying his tiny backpack as well as my own. He's chattering on about what he got to do in class today. How his teacher told him he's doing well with learning the alphabet. He shows me how high he can count and I give him a high five when he gets to ten.

He gets tired halfway through the walk home and I have to hold his hand to make sure he's still walking with me. At one point, he wipes some snot on the back of his hand and then goes to take mine again.

Once we're home, he's back up to being a tiny ball of energy and he's running around kicking up the leaves on the lawn. He pauses, looks over at Carson's house and then continues to make a mess of both the yard and himself.

Zach adores Carson. For whatever reason. I'll admit, it's kind of cute. And Carson is really good with him. I try not to think about what the sight of Carson playing with my kid brother does to my stomach.

"Mo-Mo, can I go play with Carson?"

I stir from my thoughts. Don't realize I'd been staring at the darkened porch of Carson's house until Zach's cold little hand grabs at my fingers. "Sorry, bud. See how his pickup is gone? He's not home right now."

He makes a noise at that, something I think might be an attempt at a word but it doesn't come out quite right. But he's over his disappointment when I tell him I'll make him some cocoa if he can carry his backpack all the way up to the house. He takes it from me and pretty much sprints up the walkway. I feel my fingers twitch when he nearly trips up the steps and then he's pushing at the front door, but it's locked.

"Do you have your key, Zachy?"

"Yes!"

"Do you remember how to use it?"

"Um," he draws the word out and throws a look over his shoulder at me. "Yes!"

"You have to unlock the door before it'll open." I step up behind him and put a hand on his head, bury my fingers in the curly brown mess that is his hair. "Can you do that?"

"Yeah, watch me do it." He digs a neon colored keychain out of his backpack that has his house key attached to it, along with a label that has his name and which class he's in in case he ever loses it. He struggles a little to get the key to go in the lock and I have to lift him up so he can reach it better.

I high five him again, him slapping against my hand a little too hard, when he gets the lock to turn and then we go inside.

  ~~~  

"Zach! Get down here, dinner is almost ready!"

There's a crash from upstairs and then the sound of little footsteps stomping down the stairs. He doesn't come into the kitchen though. I can hear him moving around in the front room.

"Zach, kitchen."

"There's someone outside, Mo-Mo."

"What?" I turn the burner off on the stove and go to see what he's talking about. He's in the living room, the formal one that we don't actually use that's the first thing you see when you come in the front door. His hands are smudging up the window and I make a note to clean that off later because Mom will have a conniption if she sees it. "What do you mean there's someone outside?"

"Someone is on the grass." He peels himself away from the glass long enough to point at something outside. "See?"

I move to stand behind him, my hands going to his shoulders. All the blood drains from my face. It's that shadow I keep seeing. Standing on the front lawn. I can't tell if whoever it is, is facing the house or not because it's too dark to tell. They're like a wall of black against the streetlight's glow.

"You can see that?" I almost whisper.

"Yes. I don't like it, Mo-Mo. Make him go away."

"Him?" My heart won't be able to take much more of this, I think. The rapid changes in pace every day. I'm going to die at eighteen of a massive coronary brought on by stress. "Go in the kitchen, I'll take care of it."

Zach slips out from under my hands and runs off behind me, but I'm stuck staring at the unmoving figure on our lawn. Well, at least someone else saw it besides me so I know I'm not completely losing my mind.

I leave the window and go to the front door, flipping the light for the porch on as I pull the door open. I've got what I'm going to yell at the creep standing out there all planned out, ready on the tip of my tongue.

But it dissolves when I step out on the porch and there's nobody out there. The lawn is empty. The leaves where he'd been standing are kicked up though. So somebody was standing there. My eyes automatically move next door. Zero in on the pickup parked in the driveway and the light on in the living room.

My stomach twists uncomfortably and I take a step backwards back into the house.