A Mother Would Know (44)
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When I get home, Hudson’s car is parked along the curb. The same car I thought I saw two hours ago in Oakland. The car I thought was in Vista Falls, parked in front of the clay mine, and couldn’t possibly be following me. And yet, here it is.
Uneasiness returns to my chest, making itself at home.
It’s only two-thirty. Typically, he doesn’t get home until close to four, sometimes later if he works overtime.
Inside, I find Hudson standing over the kitchen counter, eating a sandwich. His head bobs up when I enter the room, and he eyes me curiously. There are crumbs all over the counter, along with the opened loaf of bread and lunch meat, as if he’d made the sandwich in a hurry.
“You’re home early,” I say, unable to look at him. “No overtime today, huh?”
“Nope,” he responds around a mouthful. “Where were you?”
Do I detect accusation in his tone? I can’t tell. “Um...just running errands.” The lie tastes bitter on my tongue, like cheap coffee with no cream. I continue to stare at the ground.
He drops his sandwich onto a paper towel, and then wipes his hands on his pants. “I’ll help you bring stuff inside.”
Is he calling my bluff? “N-not that kind of errands.” His eyebrows lift. “I had to get gas and stuff like that.” At least now I’m partially telling the truth.
“You should’ve told me. I’d have done it for you.”
His words stop me in my tracks. Does this sound like a mean, terrifying individual? I think about how Natalia glared at me when she caught me staring through the window. Not just then, but through our entire conversation, she’d been aloof, bordering on rude and disrespectful. It’s the only interaction I’ve ever had with her. I know nothing else about her. Maybe she’s the one with problems. The unstable one. Maybe she filed a restraining order out of spite, to blacken his record, cost him legal fees. She could’ve been lying about the entire thing.
I don’t like siding against someone who might be a victim. But am I going to trust a complete stranger’s assessment of my son over my own? I never should’ve talked to his ex.
Guilt spreads through me like a rash. I can’t take the way he’s looking at me. I’m worried I’ll spill everything. “Um...” I rub my temples. “I have a bit of a headache. I think I’m gonna go lie down.”
He nods, his forehead pinched, the corners of his lips curled downward in a look of concern. This is who my son is. Concerned. Caring. Shame on me for thinking otherwise.
And there’s no way he was following me around. He was at work and then he came home and had lunch. End of story.
I start to walk out of the kitchen when an insistent scratching noise catches my attention, followed by a distressed bark.
Bowie.
The dog door is latched closed. I never lock it during the day, and certainly not if he’s out there. Another bark.
“You locked Bowie out?”
Hudson shrugs, offering up no explanation. Maybe he’s embarrassed to admit to me that he’s scared of Bowie. But I wish he would so we could talk about it. I know Bowie would never hurt him, but I get that seeing a kid get his face attacked could color all of your future interactions with any dog.
Plus, Hudson’s never had a pet. Well, unless you count Chompers. Standing at the door, my mind flies back to when Hudson was ten.
Leaning down, I brushed the hair from Hudson’s forehead and pressed my lips to his warm skin. He always ran hot. When he was an infant, I was constantly freaking out, thinking he had a perpetual fever. Straightening up, I whispered, “Good night” and was about to reach for the light switch when I glanced down into Chompers’s cage.
Hudson had gotten the hamster a few months ago after begging for one for ages. So far, he’d been taking great care of it, making sure Chompers was fed and had clean water. He and Darren had even cleaned out the cage a few times together. I was proud of what a great job he was doing taking care of an animal. And honestly relieved the job of cleaning out sawdust reeking of pee hadn’t fallen to me when the novelty of a new pet had worn off.
Now I paused: Where was Chompers? Usually, he was pretty active when I tucked Hudson in, as he came more alive at night. His cage was filled with cubbies and wheelie gadgets—all the things they urged us to buy at the pet store. Narrowing my eyes, I peeked around each of the obstacles, but there was no sign of the hamster.
“Hudson? Where is Chompers?”
He clutched the edge of his blanket with both hands, and his bottom lip trembled.
My heart sank.
“Hudson?” I inched away from the wall.
“I don’t know.” His voice was small and scared. “He wasn’t in his cage when I came back up here after dinner.”
When Hudson got Chompers, my only rule was that he wouldn’t let him out of his cage. I didn’t want to wake in the middle of the night to find a hamster in my bed. The thought alone made my skin crawl. Now, as I scoured Hudson’s floor, my neck and chest became a flaming inferno of stressed-out itchiness.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t want to get in trouble.” He sat up in bed, his eyes watery. “I promise I had his cage locked. I don’t know what happened.”
I stared at him a moment and then sighed. He was only ten. Maybe that was too young to be responsible for a pet. Once I left his room, I told Darren, and together we spent the evening searching for Chompers.