Chapter 20
It is nearly eleven o’clock at night when the doorbell rings.
It is striking how menacing an ordinary sound can be at an unexpected time.
Rebecca fumbles for Mark before remembering that he is still at the office. His mornings start earlier and earlier, his nights ending later. Rebecca can’t remember the last time she’s seen him in daylight.
Rolling over, she grabs her phone, checks the video doorbell app. No one there, no sign of a car at the curb. A late-night delivery?
Did she dream it?
Out of bed, into her dowdy bathrobe that Mark bought her for the hospital when she was pregnant with Maddy, the one she kept with hopeful anticipation and now cannot bring herself to part with.
After checking the yard from the living room and sidelight windows, she finally musters the courage to open the front door and step onto the porch. Her bare feet stick to the concrete, and she looks down in horror to see
—red-brown spatter on the matte porcelain floor tiles—
something spread across the porch, thick like blood, like matter
—crimson handprint on the side of the bathtub—
and she is already screaming by the time she lifts her feet, high-stepping idiotically in the paste that she sees now is merely sap, sap scraped off Jackson’s roof and smeared vengefully across their porch.
“Mommy, what’s wrong? What’s wrong, Mo—”
And now Maddy has rushed to her side, embracing her hips, and her bare feet, too, are mired in the sap that Jackson caked on their doorstep, and she is screaming, on sensory overload. Rebecca snaps into real time, calming herself, trying to soothe Maddy.
“It’s okay, Maddy. It’s just sap. Mommy got confused. I just—”
But Maddy is already fully gone, not workable.
She’s stomping her feet in an agony of hypersensitivity, stimming violently, eyes smashed shut, hands flapping.
Rebecca scoops her up to get her off the sticky layer of sap, but Maddy thrashes against her, and she has to tighten her grip, shushing her, rocking her.
“It’s okay. We’re gonna wash it right off.”
A flutter of movement next door pulls her eye, and she spots Jackson in his living room window. His face doesn’t look triumphant, not at all. In fact, it wears an uncharacteristic expression of regret. He pulls back, and the curtains fall forward, washing him from view.
Maddy is still howling to wake up the neighborhood.
“Ssh ssh sshhh. Maddy, I got you, baby girl. We’re just gonna—”
A hand sets down on Rebecca’s shoulder.
She yelps.
Mr. Man stands inside just across the threshold, hidden in shadow. He notes her concern, looks down at the porch and then back up at her. “Would you like me to take care of this?”
She feels an urge to hug him, this strange man with smooth features. “Yes. Thank you.”
Still hushing Maddy, she shuffles inside, halting to look at the tar-like footprints she is tracking across the vinyl tiles of their tiny foyer.
Mr. Man holds an arm wide to direct her back toward Maddy’s bathroom.