The relief that passed through his face was instant, but it lasted little.
“So, what are we going to do?”
Good question. My brain was racing. If Leo 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 James’ 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 keep watch from afar just to be sure.”
“Okay.” Leo nodded.
I took his hand again and we walked toward the parking garage. My heart was beating so hard 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 terminal. The parking garage was dimly lit with only a few scattered cars. Ours was in a corner, a silver sedan that James 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 Leo in, then myself. My hands were shaking so much it took me three tries to start the engine.
“Mom.” Leo’s voice was small in the back seat.
“Yes, my love.”
“Thank you for believing me.”
I looked in the rearview mirror. He was shrunk 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 seemed normal. The street lights illuminated the sidewalk, our well-kept lawn, the porch where James and I drank coffee on Sundays, the window of Leo’s room with the Batman curtains he had chosen. Home. 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.
Leo said nothing. He just kept looking out the window, 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 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 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 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 fertive, 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 the 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 5 minutes or 50. 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.”
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