The Last House on the Street(22)

I nod. I frankly like the idea that there are people nearby right now, even if they’re noisy construction guys.

“I should get Rainie’s room ready for her,” I say, but I don’t budge from the sofa. I’m bone-tired.

“Leave it till tomorrow,” Daddy says. “And look, honey, if you and Rainie want to stay with me tonight, you know you’re welcome.”

Oh, that’s so tempting, but I won’t give in to it. I look toward the lock on the front door. The security system is ready for me to arm, if I can remember how to do it. I’ve never felt the need for one before, but I’m glad Jackson insisted we have one in this house. I hope it never needs to be put to the test.

A short time later, Daddy goes back to his house to pick up Rainie and bring her “home.” He walks her into the house, but then leaves, telling me it’s time for Rainie and me to explore our new home together. He looks tired and I hug him gently as I thank him for his help.

Rainie and I spend the next hour checking out all the newly furnished rooms. We end up in her bedroom, where I make her full-size canopy bed with her new Dora the Explorer sheets. “What would you like for dinner?” I ask, tucking in the top sheet. “We have to go out. We have zero food in the house.”

“Taco Bell!” she shouts, and claps her hands.

So strange. Before the accident, it was always McDonald’s. Now this Taco Bell kick. “Taco Bell it is,” I say. “And then a quick run to the grocery store so we have food for breakfast. Need to go potty before we leave?”

“No,” she says, but I take her anyway. She’d been such an easy little kid to toilet train but that, like everything else, has occasionally slipped backward since the accident.

Downstairs, I try to set the alarm before we leave the house, but I can’t get it to work. Either a door or window is open, the touchpad tells me. Number thirteen, whatever that is. I check the back door, but it’s locked. Has to be a window. Rainie is starting to lose her patience, so I give up. It’s not until I’m in the car that I feel shaken by the number. Thirteen. I roll my eyes at my silliness. I’m being paranoid.

The construction guys are only working on a few of the houses this late. It’s after five and the short street is much quieter as I turn off Shadow Ridge Lane onto Round Hill Road. Rainie and I eat at Taco Bell and she tells me about building block towers with the babysitter at my father’s house while I was with the movers. “Tiffany said I should be an architreck like you and Daddy,” she says.

I smile. “An architect,” I say.

“Architect,” she repeats.

“I think you’d make a good one if that’s what you decide you’d like to do.”

It’s nearly seven when we get home. She doesn’t want a bath until I explain that she’s a big girl now who has her very own tub in her very own bathroom. That seems to satisfy her. She chatters about her friends from preschool as I wash her back. After her bath, we curl up together in her new bed and as I read to her, I wonder how she will fare this night. I’ve shown her several times how to get from her bedroom to mine, and I promise to leave the hall light on. I’m most worried about her making a wrong turn in the hall and falling down the stairs. Every time I think of that possibility, my body gives a little jerk.

Rainie is exhausted, though. She’s already asleep by the time I finish the book. I get out of her bed, turn off the light, tiptoe out the door, and pad quietly downstairs. I’m uncomfortably aware that every window I pass has no blinds or curtains. The wall of windows in the rear of the house, so spectacular in the daytime, makes me feel exposed and vulnerable now. Jackson and I planned to leave those windows uncovered, but that’s not going to do. I’ll order coverings for all the windows this week.

The front windows, though, already have beautiful Roman shades, and after I close them all, I sit on the sofa and dive into the information the security system guy left with me to figure out what number thirteen might be. It turns out to be an unlocked kitchen window. I lock it, scurrying quickly through the kitchen with its sliding glass doors, and hurry back to the living room, where I successfully set the alarm and my heart stops its ridiculous gallop.

Upstairs again, I make the king-size bed—we’d sold our queen for the king and right now, I regret it. I don’t want all that empty space to remind me how alone I am. I sit on the edge of the bed and before I know it, I’m sobbing. Big gut-wrenching sobs that hurt my chest and throat. I’m tired of trying to be strong. I miss my husband. My best friend for the last ten years. It’s so unfair. We were supposed to have more children together. Design more houses together. Grow old together. We had it all planned out. Damn it! I pound my fist on the bed. It doesn’t even make a sound.

I finally pull myself together. Turning off the bedside lamp, I cross the room to look out the window at our new street. The darkness takes my breath away and I shudder. There are no lights in any of the unfinished houses and the streetlights are not yet working on Shadow Ridge Lane. There is only one light I can see and it burns in the window of the old Hockley house. I drag the one chair in the bedroom close to the window, and I spend the better part of an hour staring at that light as if it’s shining from a lighthouse and I am lost at sea.





Chapter 11



ELLIE


1965