The next couple days progressed slowly. Before I knew it, Thursday had arrived, with not much to do. Once I was finished with my schoolwork, I decided to lounge out on the living room couch and read a book. Izzy was down for a nap and Ben was absorbed in his video games. It was all peace and quiet.
Tires screeching outside pulled my attention away from my book. I bolted towards the living room window and peered out.
I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Cars sat silently parked right where they belonged. The block was empty, no one in sight.
"Idiots," I mumbled and sunk back down onto the couch. Just as I started to get comfortable, Izzy begin to cry. I was off the couch just as fast as I had sat down.
When I entered her room, I saw her standing in her crib and gripping the wooden bars. Tears streamed down her face as she cried, looking up at me. I walked over to her crib and picked her up, holding her close to me.
"What's the matter?" I asked, gentleness in my voice. She must have had a nightmare, I thought. Her daily naps usually go by without any problems.
"Come on, you're okay," I whispered, rocking her back and forth. She was hysterical, and I felt helpless.
"Look Izzy, look!" I excitedly reached into her crib for a stuffed panda bear named Cookie. Cookie was Izzy's favorite stuffed animal. He was also a gift from dad for her baby shower.
As soon as she saw the panda bear, she grabbed it and held it in the crook of her arm. Her crying ceased, but she still appeared to be upset by something.
"My goodness, Izzy," I said, and kissed her forehead. She held tightly onto the panda bear and let out shaky breaths. I began to sway back and forth, humming softly.
Within a few moments, her body went limp in my arms. Cookie fell silently to the floor, and a smile slipped onto my face.
"There you go," I whispered, gently placing her back into the crib.
From Izzy's room, I heard the sound of the living room TV turning on, overlapping the television dialogue already coming from Ben's bedroom. I grumbled under my breath and dragged myself back into the living room, getting ready to scold Ben for not turning off the TV in his bedroom before turning on another one.
The living room sat empty and quiet, aside from the now running television. I stood in stunned silence, swallowing my reprimand. I made my way oven to Ben's room and poked my head inside. There he sat at the end of his bed, his fingers tapping away at the video game controller he held with a vice grip.
"It's either video games or TV, you can't choose both," I said, crossing my arms.
"Huh?" he asked, his eyes remaining on the screen.
"You're clearly still engrossed in your game. Don't try to use the living room TV if you're still using this one." This time he paused his game and turned to face me.
"Again. Huh?"
I rolled my eyes. "You just turned on the living room TV, Ben. Focus. Dad would kill you if he knew you were running up the electric bill like that."
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "I've been in here the whole time."
I leaned my shoulder into the door frame. "You're not funny, and you're not fooling anyone. It was either you, or a ghost."
"Then I guess the house is haunted," he shrugged his shoulders. "'Cause it wasn't me." He turned back around and resumed his video game. I felt like arguing further, but decided not to. Trying to reason with a nine-year-old was like trying to reason with, well - a nine-year-old.
I went back to check on Izzy, and she was just as I had left her. I spotted Cookie still laying on the floor, and I knelt down and scooped him up. Narrowly peeking out from under the crib skirt was something on the floor, black and slightly shiny. I touched it with my fingertips then slowly slid it out across the floor.
It was a single black leather glove, and I couldn't for the life of me piece together who would have been using it, and what they would have been using it for. Maybe my dad was doing some housework and dropped it in here? Maybe Ben found a pair of gloves and was pretending to be some kind of character?
I shoved the glove into my back pocket and quietly left Izzy's room.
* * *
I was dreaming of my mother. She sat next to me on the swinging wooden bench in the backyard, her favorite place to sit on the weekends and read her novels. The warm sun shining off the both of us made her hair look even more golden, and I swore I could even smell her. Peaches and cinnamon, with a little muskiness.
She reached across the open space between us and stroked a lock of my hair, and her hand felt cold against my scalp. I reached up to hold her hand, but it began to disintegrate in mine, like a decaying leaf.
I yanked my hand away and the dream slowly fell apart around me, like a wet blanket was being pulled off of me.
The sound of Izzy crying filled my ears and I struggled to see through the sweaty clumps of hair covering my face. "Huh?" I sat up and combed my hair back with my fingers. Ben stood in front of my bed, holding Izzy in his arms, rocking back and forth frantically.
"She won't stop," he said. I held my arms out and he passed her over.
"What's wrong?" I asked, to no one in particular.
"Uh, I don't know, maybe someone throwing a brick through the window?" Ben said, pointing his finger down at the floor.
"What!" I yelled, and jumped to my feet. Izzy didn't seem to like the sudden movement and began crying even harder. I mashed my lips together and gave Ben a hard stare, as if to say what is going on.
"Go look," he said, and I stared at him for another second before finally moving my feet to go downstairs.
As soon as I got to the bottom of the staircase, I saw it. Just as Ben had said. The large bay window in the living room had a basketball sized hole in it, broken glass lay all over the window sill and around the carpet, and on the floor just a head or two away from the couch lay a gray brick. I stepped closer to it, squeezing Izzy tighter to me, and noticed what looked like a piece of paper tied around the brick with twine.
I handed Izzy back over to Ben so I could pick up the brick and look closer at it. I slid the paper out and unfolded it, tucking the brick under my arm.
The brick slid out from under my arm, landing full force on my foot. "God dammit!" I yelled, crumpling up the paper and shoving it into my back pocket. The black leather glove from earlier slipped out of my pocket and tumbled onto the ground.
"What's that?" Ben asked.
"I don't know," I blurted, anger mixing with pain. "I found it." Ben didn't say anything for a second, both him and Izzy just looked at me.
"Should we call dad or the police first?" he asked. I sat at the edge of the couch and lifted my aching foot up onto the opposite knee.
"Neither," I said, rubbing my foot. "Just a stupid prank. Will only cost maybe a hundred dollars to have the window fixed. It's no big deal," I said, and he glanced back at the window.
"Okay." He cleared his throat. "I'm gonna' go back to my room then." He handed Izzy over to me and trudged back to his bedroom. It took all of my strength to keep in the shaky cry I was holding, until I heard the sound of his video game resuming.
I held my baby sister to me as tight as I could without hurting her. The note was burning a hole in my back pocket, and I wanted so badly to run to the police station, but I didn't want to set off Ben and scare him. If I could keep him out of the chaos, that's what I was going to do.
I did a quick look behind me to make sure Ben was still in his room, then reached back to pull the crumpled paper out of my pocket. I held it in front of me, reading the scribbling over and over, making sure I was reading it right and not imagining it.
But I wasn't. It was right there, and I knew exactly who was responsible for this.
In blue pen, written as clear as day.
Love, C.P.