“Okay, son. I believe you.”
The relief that passed over his face was instant, but it lasted little.
“So, what are we going to do?”
Good question. My brain was racing. If Matthew was right—and every cell in my body was starting to scream that he was—going home was a death sentence. But where to go? To whose house? All our friends were Richard’s friends, too. My family lived in another state. And what if I was wrong? What if it was all a terrible misunderstanding?
But what if it was not?
“Let’s go to the car,” I decided. “But we are not going home. We are going to… we are going to watch from far away, just to be sure. Okay?”
Matthew nodded. I took his hand again, and we walked to the parking lot. My heart was beating so fast I could hear the blood pulsing in my ears. Every step seemed to weigh a ton. The cold night air hit me as we left the airport. The parking lot was dimly lit, with only a few scattered cars. Ours was in a corner, a silver sedan that Richard had insisted on buying last year.
“A safe car for my family,” he said.
Safe. What a bitter joke.
We opened the car and got in. I buckled Matthew in, then myself. My hands were shaking so much it took me three tries to start the engine.
“Mom.”
Matthew’s voice was small in the back seat.
“Yes, my love?”
“Thanks for believing me.”
I looked in the rearview mirror. He was curled up in the seat, hugging the dinosaur backpack he took everywhere.
“I am always going to believe you, son. Always.”
And in that moment, I realized I should have said that before. I should have listened to him from the beginning.
I drove in silence. I did not go straight home. I took an alternate route, a parallel street that overlooked our street without us being easily seen. I found a dark spot between two large trees and parked. From there, we could see our house in the suburbs. Everything looked normal. The streetlights illuminated the sidewalk, our well-kept lawn, the porch where Richard and I drank coffee on Sundays, Matthew’s bedroom window with the Batman curtains he had chosen. House. Our home. Or at least that was what I thought.
I turned off the engine and the car lights. Total darkness. Total silence except for our breathing.
“And now we wait,” I whispered.
Matthew said nothing. He just kept looking out the window, his eyes fixed on the house. And so we stayed, waiting, not knowing that in less than an hour, everything I thought I knew about my life was going to crumble.
The clock on the dashboard marked 10:17 p.m. when I started to question if I was not being completely ridiculous. There I was, hiding on a dark street with my six-year-old son, staking out my own house like we were spies in a bad movie. What kind of mother does this? What kind of wife suspects her own husband of… of what, exactly? I could not even form the complete thought in my head. It was too absurd.
Richard never raised a hand to me. He never yelled at Matthew. He was a present father, a provider husband. But was he a loving husband? The question came out of nowhere and caught me off guard. When was the last time he looked at me with real affection, that he asked how my day was and really wanted to hear the answer, that he touched me without it being mechanical, automatic? When was the last time I felt loved and not just maintained?
“Mom, look.”
Matthew’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. My heart raced.
“What? What did you see?”
“There. That car.”
I followed the direction of his small finger. A car was turning onto our street. But it was not just any car. It was a dark van without any decals. No front license plate visible. The windows were tinted so dark it was impossible to see who was inside. The van slowed down as it passed in front of the houses. Too slow to be someone just passing through. It was like it was searching.
My breath caught in my throat when the van stopped exactly in front of our house.
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