Chapter 10: When the Back Door Was Unlocked
The service door shouldn't have been open.
It was just after lunch. The girls had gone up for quiet time and I was wiping down the marble island, my hands still dry from flour that wouldn't wash off clean. The kitchen was quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the glass-front cabinets ticking a little in the heat. I went to take the trash to the service entry the way I always did at one o'clock, and the door was cracked an inch.
That door was never cracked. House rule, his rule, every night and every morning he checked it himself. Locked, deadbolted, alarm set. He'd told me on my first day, if I left it unlocked once I was done. I hadn't touched it that morning at all.
I pushed it with my fingertip and it swung inward without resistance. The small mudroom on the other side was empty. The rubber mat was clean, the shoes lined up the same, but the deadbolt was turned all the way back and the alarm keypad showed a solid green light instead of red. Someone had unlocked it from inside and left it that way on purpose, in the middle of the day while we were all home.
I pulled it shut and locked it. My hand was shaking a little and I had to turn the bolt twice to make sure it caught. I stood there listening to the kitchen behind me and I didn't hear anything that shouldn't have been there, which was worse.
When I brought the girls back down for snack, I noticed the hooks by the pantry were empty.
We had three little hooks at kid height where their pink floral aprons hung after baking. They were part of the routine, they'd learned to hang them up themselves. I always checked. But that afternoon all three hooks were bare.
"Where are your aprons, honey?" I asked the oldest. She just looked at the wall and then at me. Her sisters clustered behind her.
I checked the laundry, the island stools, the chairs. I finally opened the pantry to get the crackers and they were there, all three aprons folded in a neat stack on the shelf where the flour was, tucked behind the canisters where the girls couldn't reach. Someone had moved them and hidden them there. It wasn't a mess, it was deliberate. Like someone didn't want that morning in the kitchen to happen again.
I took them out and hung them back up one by one. The oldest watched my hands the whole time. She didn't say anything until the younger two ran to the table.
She tugged my apron. Her voice was so low I had to bend down.
"He said not to sing that song again," she whispered.
I froze with my hand still on the middle hook. "Who said that, sweetheart?"
She glanced fast toward the hallway, toward the service entry, then back at me. Her eyes were wide and she wasn't being dramatic, she was reporting it exactly the way a kid does when she's been told not to tell.
"He came while we were sleeping," she whispered. "He said if we sing it, Mommy won't come back."
My breath caught and I didn't mean it to. I knelt down so we were eye level and kept my voice even.
"When did he say that? Just now?"
She nodded. "During nap. He opened the door just a little."
There hadn't been anyone upstairs except us. I had been in the hallway folding laundry the whole quiet time. I hadn't seen anyone go up. But the service door had been unlocked. Someone knew how to move in this house without being seen.
I hugged her then, quick and tight, and I felt how small her shoulders were under her dress. I told her she did the right thing telling me, and that Mommy's song was a good song and nobody could make it bad.
That night I broke protocol.
He'd always been clear - staff didn't sleep on the second floor, staff didn't stay in the girls' room overnight unless there was a storm or someone was sick and he asked me to. But at seven o'clock when I was supposed to go down to my room off the kitchen, I carried my blanket up the stairs instead.
He was standing in the hallway outside their room, still in his black shirt, his neck tattoo sharp under the hall light. He saw the blanket in my arms and understood before I said anything.
"The service door was unlocked today," I said quietly, so the girls wouldn't hear from inside. "And their aprons were moved. She told me someone told her not to sing again. During nap."
His jaw tightened. He didn't ask who. He looked past me at the lock on the service stairwell door and then back at their bedroom door where the three of them were already in their beds.
"You're staying," he said. It wasn't a question.
"I'm staying," I said.
He nodded once. "I'll be in my room. Door open. Alarm on. You lock that door from the inside."
I slipped into the girls' room and closed the door and turned the lock. The room was dim, nightlight on, three little beds lined up against the cream wall. The oldest was awake, watching me. I spread my blanket on the rug between her bed and her sisters' beds and sat down with my back against the wall.
"Is he gone?" she whispered.
"Not gone," I whispered back. "But I'm right here. All night. Nobody's coming in without me knowing."
May you like
She reached her hand down and I held it. Her fingers were cold. The other two breathed soft and even in their sleep, but she stayed awake a long time, listening with me to the house. Every creak of the old floors, every click of the heater, sounded too loud.
I didn't sleep. I sat on that rug with my knees pulled up, holding her hand, staring at the locked bedroom door, listening for any footstep on the other side.
