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“Oh, don’t go. I was just teasin’. Havin’ fun with you. I’ll stop.” Pausing my departure, I listened to what he had to say. “I did want to ask if you were okay from that last break-in. Saw your window patched up. I know a guy who can come out and fix it for a good price.”
“No, thanks.” I didn’t want to owe him anything, but I was curious. “Did they get in your place, too?”
“No, no. None of us have had break-ins around here. Yours is the only one getting hit, it seems.” He looked over my house, then chuckled. “I had to break into my ex’s house once. Bitch kept some photos of herself with fake injuries. She said I’d caused them. I’d never hit a woman. I had to get those photos, or she’d use them to put me behind bars. I didn’t remember she had them until years later. She said she was moving out. Then I remembered she put them behind the bathroom mirror. Watched her do it at the time and forgot to take them with me when I left.”
Eddie’s gaze seemed far away, in another time.
“Huh. Did you get the photos?”
“Sure did. Burned them that very night. Cunt has stayed out of my life ever since.” His shoulders straightened, and he gave me a quick smile, returning to the present. Despite my rejection, he insisted on telling me his friend’s business name to call for window replacement.
As I walked to my garage, he called after me, “Seriously, sweetheart. If you need me, come get me. Anytime, day or night. We can’t let these hooligans run the neighborhood.”
Once I returned to the house, I studied the broken window, still covered by thick plastic. Looking into the kitchen from outside, Eddie’s story came to my mind. He had broken into his old house looking for something. No one was trying to rob my neighbor’s homes. Was someone burglarizing mine to get to something they had left behind?
The entire house had been thrown apart the last time anyone had been here. Maybe they were trying to find a specific object. But the people who lived here were dead. Who would leave something in the house? And what had they forgotten? Where was it?
The rest of the day, I cleaned up more of the destroyed house. Beginning in the den, I put away everything there, dropping off items onto their respective piles. I bagged up all the donation items, loaded them into my car, and took them to the charity center. Nothing in the piles seemed worthy of someone breaking into the house to steal.
Back in the den, I moved the coffee table and stared at the carpet. It was a darker brown there than in other spots. That’s where it happened. Staring at it made those feelings of confusion bubble up. I wanted everything different, to make it my own, without bad memories clouding the picture.
By evening, I had moved all the furniture, searched the entire room, and pulled up the carpet, rolling it into a tight bundle and pushing it to one end of the room. It was too heavy for me to move elsewhere by myself. The exposed hardwood floor was much nicer than the dirty carpet, and I felt like I could breathe easier knowing my father’s bloodstains weren’t there anymore.
The den was organized, clean, and neat. Every object had been inspected and exposed. There were no hidden treasures for someone to break in to grab, at least in that room. I set everything up as if it were my own.
Despite my exhaustion from the day’s work, I considered the next room I would tackle. Before I could start, my phone rang. It was Johnny. We hadn’t spoken since the night he said he liked me and tried to kiss me. Maybe I had been overreacting to his advances. I almost felt bad for thinking he would do anything to make me feel uncomfortable. He’d only done everything to be a good friend to me.
“Hey, Johnny.”
“Hey, Essie! How’s my slayer doin’?” I could hear his bright smile through his voice.
“Ha. I’m doing okay. Been cleaning house today. How are you?”
His tone lowered. “Lonely. Wanna watch some more Angel together? I’m nearby.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to. But I also wanted help moving the bloodstained carpet out of the room. Johnny was harmless. Maybe I could slyly invite Piper over while he was here, too. Just as a buffer between us.
“Yeah, come on over.”
“Great! Be there in a few!”
Quickly, I texted Piper, asking her if she could come over to be our chaperone. She responded in a few minutes that she was on a terrible date with some random guy. When I told her to ditch him, she said he was too hot to leave. I laughed.
Johnny arrived within one minute. “Whoa! Love what you’ve done with the place,” he said, looking at all my piles and upturned items. “What happened here?”
Standing near the entry, I scanned the room with him. It was actually much better than it had been. “Someone busted out the glass in the kitchen and broke in.”
“Oh, shit. You should have called me. What did they take?”
Waving a hand to the rubble, I said, “Nothing. Not that I can tell anyway.”
Johnny laughed. “Yeah, it would be hard to tell.” He knelt in front of some piles on the living room floor. “Want help sorting through this stuff?”
“Actually, would you mind helping me take out some old carpet?”
Johnny toted the roll outside to the curb for me. I grabbed an end, but he did most of the lifting. When we returned to the house, he settled on the living room floor, sorting through the piles again.
Watching him dig through the items, I stood near the front door. “You don’t need to do this.”
