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My child had an obsession with dark, spooky places. A few months ago, he’d figured out when I came downstairs with the basket, I’d be going to one of those dark, spooky places, and he made sure to tag along.
He trailed behind me on the creaking steps. To tell the truth, I hated coming down to the basement, so it was nice to have company in the dank, cold space. Plus, Ezra gave absolutely no fucks about spiders and other creepy-crawlies. He’d chase them down or shoo them away for me without blinking. When he was two, I’d realized he was hardcore the moment he giggled as a spider the size of a half-dollar crawled all over his arms—because he’d picked it up.
“What should we do today?” I asked as I tossed laundry into the washer.
“Playground,” he suggested. He always suggested that.
“How about a candy factory instead?”
He guffawed. No way was he falling for that old trick. “No, playground!”
“Have you checked the weather? Isn’t it cold enough to turn your lips blue?”
Ezra rolled his eyes when he thought I wasn’t looking. I swore, he only put up with me because I supplied him with applesauce squeezers and the occasional donut. Otherwise, he would have been out of here.
“No, Mommy. I wear abigcoat and gwoves on my fingers.”
I knew which battles to pick, and this one wasn't one of them. Ezra needed to run and run fast so he didn’t tear down the walls of Jenny’s townhouse.
“All right. Let’s make a deal. We’ll go to the playground while the laundry’s in the washer. If your lips don’t turn blue, I’ll take you again after your nap.”
He crossed his little arms and considered my proposition as if we hadn’t made the same compromise a dozen times before. After a good thirty seconds, he nodded, taking me up on my deal.
We bundled up and walked hand in hand to the little park down the street. Jenny’s neighborhood had seen better days, but the sense of community couldn’t have been bought for all the money in the world. We knew most of our neighbors by name, and no one blinked at me being a young, single mom. Ezra was accepted just as easily as a kid from a nuclear family in the fancy burbs.
Mr. Sulaimani at the bodega always had a lollipop for him no matter how many times I protested, and he made sure to check in with me too. When I’d been in college, he’d insisted on reading the papers I wrote for English classes and would give me a bar of chocolate when I got an A.
Auntie Jackie—our next-door neighbor who wasn’t related to us in any way—dropped everything to babysit Ez when Jenny wasn’t available. She didn’t even let me pay her and loved my kid like he was her blood kin.
There were times over the last three years I’d felt like there were eyes on me. I didn’t know what it was exactly, just an awareness of someone else’s presence from time to time. But I hadn’t been afraid, and I still didn’t know if I was imagining things or the feeling was from living in a close-knit community where business didn’t remain private for long. Either way, I had gotten used to it and barely noticed the feeling anymore, though it was still there, lingering.
Life wasn’t easy, but it was good here.
After thirty minutes of swinging, running, and throwing himself off the playground equipment, Ezra and I stopped at the bodega on the way home for a cup of hot chocolate. Mr. Sulaimani helped Ez open a cherry lollipop while I went to the back to get his drink.
I was pumping the creamy hot chocolate from a carafe into a thick paper cup when someone slid next to me, leaning their elbow between the coffee pots and soda machine.
“Hey, mami. Is today our day?”
My stomach dropped. There were a lot of things I loved about our neighborhood, but Edwin Cruz wasn’t one of them. He was a few years older than me, handsome in a slimy way, with perfect edges in his hair, a sparkling diamond in his ear, and a slit in his eyebrow. His heavy, cloying cologne coated my nose and made my eyes water like pepper spray. I backed up a step to try to remove myself from his sphere.
“Sorry, no.” I hated myself for apologizing. Edwin had been asking me out for the last year and he always took my ‘no’ as ‘not right now.’
He reached out and ran a hand over my hair, smirking at my answer. “Come on, Wren. We’ll have fun together, you and me. I’m a quality guy. You just got to give me a chance.”
I shook my head even as my lips lifted into a tremulous smile. There was something about this man that made me slightly afraid to be truly firm with him and tell him he gave me the damn creeps.
“I don’t date. You know that.” That wasn’t a lie, but even if I did date, a man like Edwin would be the last I’d ever choose. I didn’t know what he saw in me that he liked—maybe he thought I was vulnerable and easy—but I didn’t see anything in him that interested me. He was too pushy—and way too smooth.
He kept touching my hair, not taking even an ounce of a hint. “We don’t have to leave the house, mami. I’ll be your man and take real good care of you. You won’t want or need anything else.”
Ezra came tearing down the chip aisle with Mr. Sulaimani on his heels, holding his lollipop up like he was the Statue of Liberty. “Mommy, where’s my choco?”
Edwin dropped his hand from my hair and crossed his arms over his broad chest with a disgruntled, “Hmph.” Mr. Sulaimani crossed his arms over his chest and gave him a dark look. I’d never seen that expression on him, but he appeared downright murderous.
I showed Ezra the cup in my shaking hand. “Here it is, baby buddy. Let’s go home. It’ll be cool enough to drink when we get there.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him back in the direction we came. Mr. Sulaimani called after us when I laid a dollar down on his counter and didn’t stay to chat, but I kept going.
Once we were outside in the daylight, I breathed easier. I didn’t think Edwin would actually hurt me, but he made me uncomfortable enough. I sometimes wished he’d fall into a sinkhole and never return. He could live a perfectly happy life on the other side of it, just not anywhere near me.
