The clock on the dashboard marked 10:17 at night when I started to question if I was not being completely ridiculous. There I was, hiding in a dark street with my six-year-old son, staking out my own house as if 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.
James never raised a hand to me, never yelled at Leo. 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.”
Leo’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. My heart raced.
“What? What did you see?”
“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 visible front license plate. 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 looking.
My breath got caught in my throat when the van stopped exactly in front of our house.
“It cannot be,” I whispered. “It cannot.”
But it was.
The two front doors opened. Two men got out. Even from afar, even with the poor lighting, you could see they were not technicians or delivery guys or anything normal. They wore dark clothes, hooded jackets, and the way they moved was furtive, calculated. They stood for a moment in front of our driveway, looking around.
My instinct was to scream, call the police, do something. But I was paralyzed, watching as if it were a nightmare from which I could not wake up.
One of them, the taller one, put his hand in his pocket. I hoped he would pull out a crowbar, some tool to force entry. That would be a burglary. I could deal with a burglary. I could call the police, file a report, move on.
But what he pulled out of his pocket made my world come crashing down.
A key.
He had a key to our house.
“Mom?” Leo’s voice trembled. “How do they have the key?”
I could not answer. I was too busy trying not to throw up. The man opened the front door as if he were the owner. Without forcing, without breaking, he simply opened it. And then the other man walked in. Another key. The door opened smoothly. Only three people had a key to our house: me, James, and the spare key that was in his office in the locked desk drawer.
The two men entered my house. Into the house where I slept yesterday. Where I made breakfast for Leo this morning. Where I felt safe.
They did not turn on the lights. I could see beams of flashlights dancing behind the curtains. They were looking for something. Or worse, they were preparing something.
I do not know how long I sat there, frozen, watching. It could have been five minutes or fifty. Time had lost meaning. All that existed was that vision: two strangers inside my house with keys that only my husband could have given them.
Then I smelled it. At first I thought I was imagining it, but it got stronger. A chemical smell. Strong. Gasoline.
“Mom, what is that smell?” asked Leo.
And that was when I saw smoke. It started small, just a thin thread coming out of the living room window. Then another from the kitchen window. And then I saw the glow. That sinister orange glow that can only mean one thing.
Fire.
“No.”
I got out of the car without thinking.
“No. No. No.”
Leo’s hand pulled me back.
“Mom, no. You cannot go there.”
He was right. I knew it. But it was my house. My things. The photos from when Leo was born. The wedding dress stored in the closet. The drawings Leo made and I stuck on the refrigerator. The blanket my grandmother knitted before she died. Everything burning.
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