9. Kristin
KRISTIN
I balanced the baby monitor on the edge of the sink, even though it was pointless.
Henry was right here with me, strapped into his car seat on the bath mat.
He was asleep, mouth open, fists tucked under his chin.
Steam curled around us, fogging the mirror, turning the bathroom into a damp little cave.
This was the closest thing I had had to “alone time” in weeks, a shower with an audience of a twelve-week-old.
“You and me, kid,” I said as I stepped into the tub and pulled the curtain closed.
My muscles loosened under the hot water, and for the first time in a while, my brain started to slide into neutral.
“Kris?” Patrick’s voice came from outside the bathroom door.
I jumped, the shampoo bottle nearly slipping from my fingers.
“Yeah?” I squirted a dollop into my hand.
“Where’s Henry?”
I blinked, almost forgetting for a moment where he was, and then I peeked my head around the edge of the shower curtain. He was right where I’d left him, on the floor in his car seat.
“He’s in here with me.”
I ducked back under the water, working the shampoo into my scalp. A tiny worry nudged me. Patrick sounded . . . off, not wrong, exactly. Just flatter. Like he was doing an impression of himself.
“Did you need something?” I called out.
He didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched on, filled only by the rush of water and the faint whistle of old pipes.
I poked my head around the shower curtain. “Patrick?”
“Yeah.” His voice came through the wood, muffled and dull.
Something in the way he said it made my skin prickle. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“I want to talk to you about something.”
I massaged shampoo through my hair, foam sliding down my neck. “Right now?”
He didn’t answer.
“Patrick, what do you want to talk about?”
“We should move,” he said.
My heart tripped over itself, and I yanked the curtain aside. “What? Why?”
“It’s not safe here.” His voice was calm . . . too calm.
The words didn’t land right. They were familiar in a way that made my stomach twist. I’d heard them before, said them myself once, then twice, then so many times I lost count.
Not long after Henry was born. But I had always been the one saying them.
Patrick had nodded, told me everything was okay—until one day we were packing up our townhome and heading north.
A bolt of cold shot down my spine despite the hot water. “What do you mean, ‘not safe’?”
On the other side of the door, the floor creaked. I pictured him standing there in his cardigan and pleated pants, running a hand through his hair.
“I think if we don’t leave now . . . we won’t be able to.”
“You’re scaring me.”
Because that was my line. Until I stopped saying it out loud. But hearing it from him made it sound less like instinct and more like contagion.
Only the running water responded, spirals turning into mini tornadoes down the drain as steam plumed at the ceiling.
“Patrick?” I called again.
Nothing.
My pulse spiked. In my head, something shifted—not relief, exactly, but possibility. Maybe he was scared too. Maybe he’d seen things, heard things, and he just didn’t want to say anything because he was the practical one. The steady one. The let’s-wait-and-see one.
“Look, just give me a minute, okay?” I said, forcing my voice to stay light. “And then we can talk. I actually have some things I want to tell you.”
The words felt like a dam breaking. I’d been holding everything inside, the whispers, open windows, lights turning on, wet footprints—and now finally, maybe, we were going to compare notes. Be scared together, make a plan. The idea sent a strange, almost dizzying relief through me.
I turned the water off, and the shower stuttered to silence.
I wrapped myself in my robe, knotting it tighter than usual, and twisted my wet hair into a towel. I unbuckled Henry from his car seat and lifted him into my chest. His warm weight melted into me. He snuffled once, then settled his cheek against my shoulder.
“Okay,” I said, more to him than anyone else. “Let’s go have a mental breakdown, as a family.”
I opened the bathroom door and stepped into our bedroom, expecting to find Patrick waiting for me, but it was empty.
“Patrick?”
The bed was still made. His pajamas lay draped over the chair where he had left them this morning.
“Patrick?” I called again, louder.
Only the quiet hum of the house answered me. He wouldn’t just walk away mid-conversation, not when he sounded that serious. I eased into the hallway and tiptoed down the floorboards.
“Hailey,” I said, nudging her door open with my foot.
She jumped like she’d been shot. “Wow, knock much?”
“Where’s your dad?”
“He’s not home yet.”
“Yeah. He is,” I said. “He was talking to me while I was in the shower.”
I crossed the room to the window and peered out. The yard was empty, and the pond was a flat white slab of ice. The lone black goose was back, staring right at me.
“I think I would’ve heard the front door if he was home, Mom. It’s not like this house is soundproof.”
Henry started to squirm in my arms. I focused on him, bouncing gently, trying to steady the tremor in my hands. I looked back out the window, half expecting to catch Patrick sneaking around the side of the house—and Hailey laughing, pleased with the elaborate prank they were playing on me.
But there was no one. The trees stood still, and the sky was a flat, bruised gray. My heart beat so hard I felt it in my throat and fingertips. Had I wanted him to be there badly enough to invent him? Had exhaustion filled in the gaps?
“But he said he wanted to talk,” I mumbled, more to myself than to Hailey.
“Okay,” she said, an edge of annoyance creeping in. “Maybe you dozed off in the shower or something.”
The way she said it—careful, already distancing herself—made my chest tighten.
I thought for a moment. Dozed off in the shower? Had I heard pipes groan and then turned them into sentences? That was possible, wasn’t it?
A low rumble cut through my spiraling thoughts. Patrick’s SUV turned down the long driveway and followed the curve around the pond, slow and steady.
“See?” Hailey said, stepping beside me at the window. “There’s Dad now.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin slightly. “Told ya he wasn’t home yet.” She watched with mild satisfaction, while I watched with a knot in my stomach.
Something was wrong with this town, with these neighbors, with this house. And somehow I was the only one who seemed to feel it.
Then I remembered Hailey’s words at the dinner table, about the boy she thought was mysterious, the one who told her not to trust the neighbors.
I kept my tone breezy and careful. “Sooo, that boy you mentioned last night? The one who told you not to trust the neighbors? What was his name again?”
She tilted her head, suspicious now. “Eddie?”
“Yeah. Eddie.” I tried to sound casual. “What else did he tell you about this house?”
“It was just some story about a family that lived here back in the forties. The Thorn family. They got murdered. Something about a property-line fight with the neighbors, and then poof, they’re dead.”
I raised a brow. “And why would he tell you that?”
“Because he’s a teenage boy and scaring girls is like their favorite hobby? I don’t know.”
I hesitated. “Did he say anything else?”
“Nope. We only covered 1940s murders,” she said. “Why are you asking about Eddie?” Her eyes narrowed.
“I just want to know who you’re making friends with,” I said lightly. “Mom stuff.”
“I wouldn’t call him a friend.”
Before I could press further, Patrick’s voice floated down the hall, cheerful and oblivious. “Honey, I’m home.”
“Let’s go say hi to your dada,” I whispered to Henry, forcing normalcy into the words.
Hailey left the room, while I stayed at the window a moment longer.
In the quiet, the pieces shifted into loose alignment: Eddie warning Hailey about the neighbors, the car accident and the way the witnesses circled me, lights flicking on by themselves, wet footprints in my studio, the windows that wouldn’t stay shut, the child in the basement, and the whisper on the baby monitor.
None of it formed a whole picture yet. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was nothing at all, but the uneasy truth settled low and stubborn inside me.
If something was happening here, I was the only one who sensed it—and I didn’t know if that made me the first one to understand or the easiest one to doubt.