“What happened? Did you draw on the walls again?”
He shook his head so violently that tears appeared in his eyes.
“No.”
The fear in his voice erased my smile.
He glanced anxiously toward the hallway.
“I promised I wouldn’t let anyone in.”
I frowned.
“Promised WHO?”
He did not respond.
His fingers tightened around my sleeve, trembling through the fabric.
That was when I realized something else was wrong.
The house was not peaceful.
It was unnaturally silent.
There was no music playing from the kitchen, even though Lauren always listened to something while she cooked.
The television was off.
I heard no dishwasher, washing machine, or footsteps upstairs.
Lauren had stayed with Bennett during my trip.
She was thirty-two, dependable, and more protective of my son than almost anyone I knew. She had rearranged her work schedule without complaint when I asked her to help.
I called her name.
“Lauren?”
There was no answer.
The silence felt wrong.
I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.
Bennett remained so close that his shoulder pressed against my side.
“Maybe she’s in the kitchen,” I said, mostly to reassure myself.
The kitchen was empty.
Two cups rested beside the sink. A tea bag floated in one, while the other appeared untouched.
I checked the backyard.
No one was there.
Lauren’s car remained outside.
My pulse began racing.
When I returned to the hallway, Bennett stood exactly where I had left him.
“Bennett,” I asked gently, “where’s Aunt Lauren?”
He stared at the floor.
“I… I don’t know.”
That made no sense.
Lauren would never leave him alone.
I crouched in front of him and rested my hands lightly on his shoulders.
His lower lip trembled.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she go outside?”
He shook his head.
“Did someone come to the house?”
His eyes moved toward the hallway again.
Then I noticed a narrow line of light beneath his bedroom door.
Bennett was careful about switching lights off because Lauren had convinced him every bulb left burning cost me a fortune.
Then I heard another sound.
It was so faint I nearly missed it.
A low whisper.
Then the sound of something heavy scraping across the floor.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
Bennett’s small fingers continued trembling.
“Mom… please.”
“They said you’d be angry if you found out.”
My heart hammered.
They.
Not she.
Not he.
They.
Bennett followed me for one step before stopping.
The whispering ended abruptly.
The bedroom became completely silent.
I closed my hand around the doorknob and opened the door several inches.
Then I froze.
The first person I saw was Lauren.
She crouched beside Bennett’s bed with one hand covering her mouth.
The second was a man I had not seen in eight years.
My father.
He appeared older than I remembered. His dark hair had become almost entirely gray, and his shoulders looked narrower beneath his brown coat.
An open cardboard box rested near his feet.
Beside him, Lauren had pulled Bennett’s toy chest away from the wall.
That had caused the scraping noise.
“Dad?” I whispered.
My father slowly stood.
“Ingrid.”
The sound of my name in his voice tightened something inside me.
He used to say it that way when I was a child, usually before apologizing for another broken promise.
“What are you doing here?”
Lauren stood quickly.
“Before you get angry, let me explain.”
“You told Bennett not to let anyone in?”
“No,” she answered. “Dad did.”
My father looked ashamed.
“I thought we would be gone before you got home.”
Bennett appeared behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“I didn’t tell her,” he said nervously. “She came early.”
“You did nothing wrong.”
Then I looked at Lauren.
“Why were you hiding in my son’s bedroom?”
She glanced toward the open cardboard box.
“We were looking for something.”
I stared at her.
“You brought him into my house without telling me, then searched through Bennett’s room?”
“We weren’t searching through his things,” Lauren insisted. “We were checking behind the toy chest.”
“For what?”
My father bent down and removed a loose piece of wooden trim from the wall.
Inside the narrow opening, wrapped in an old kitchen towel, was a small metal tin.
I recognized it immediately.
It was my mother’s recipe box.
The sight of it stole my next question.
My mother died when I was nineteen.
She had been ill for nearly a year, but my father disappeared before the end, claiming he could not bear to watch her condition worsen.
