“Oh! Right, can I get you something to drink?” I ask. Shit, where are my manners? My mother would be appalled.
“I’d love some of that lemonade I got ya.” He says, flopping down into my armchair.
“Of course!” I flit into the kitchen, dragging Henry along with me. My hands shake as I fetch a glass from the cabinet. Having Tom in my house makes me feel twitchy, especially with me worrying about Henry acting so weird, but perhaps it’s just because of how sensitive I’ve been around people overall.
This is totally normal behavior—neighborly even. I’m the weird one that's acting like it’s odd. Henry doesn’t leave my side when I take the drink back to the living room to Tom, even getting between me and the chair where he sits.
“Thank you.” He takes the cup and winks at me before taking big, gulping sips. "You've got a nice place, you know that? I really like what you’ve done with it, like one of those magazines.”
“Thanks,” I say, twisting my hands. “It wasn’t hard, theplace had good bones already.”
Really, it was quite a bit of work, but considering how “meh” I feel about all of it, it’s hard to take the compliment.
“Well, I really do have a lot that I need to get done today…” I say, hoping he’ll take the hint to leave. While having him in my house has maybe been a good “stretch” for my tolerances, I’d really like my skin to stop feeling like it’s too tight and that I need to bolt out the back door.
“Oh, of course!” Tom stands, draining the glass and leaving it on the side table. “You don’t mind if I use the restroom, do ya?” he asks, heading for the correct door. I don’t remember showing him where it was, but it’s possible he knows from before I lived here.
“Go for it!” I say, sitting back down to wait.
From the living room, I can hear the loud sound of his pee hitting the water, and it’s intimate and creepy in the worst way. Maybe my bathroom needs better insulation because I never want to listen to anyone else pee from my living room ever again. I stare at the flowchart on my screen, but nothing makes sense in the wake of my uneasiness. Everything feels off with Tom in my house, and eventually I start to wonder how long it takes him to wash his hands. After ten minutes or so, the door finally clicks open, and he saunters into my living room, the putrid smell of feces following him. Real nice, Tom.
“Much better,” he says.
“Great! Well, thank you so much, again, for all your help.” I grab my purse and checkbook. “What do I owe you for the groceries and the trail cams?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it!” he says. “It’s worth it, knowing you’ll be safe.”
“No way, Tom, those were expensive, you’ve gotta let me pay you.”
“I forget how independent you can be, Ada. All right, sweetheart,” he says, like I’m twisting his arm instead of paying him back for money he spent on my behalf. “The groceries were $200 and the cams were $400.”
My eyes attempt to vacate my head. This man just spent$400on something I didn’t even ask for? Jesus.
Still, I write a check for $600 and hand it over, mentally doing the math to figure out if I need to move money out of savings to cover it. I should be okay, and I plaster a smile on my face to hide how annoyed I am at him for spending that much.
“Thanks again.”
“Don’t mention it, like I said, just cook me dinner when all this is over and we’ll be square.” Tom winks and walks toward my door. “Also, let me know if your snowmen need some scarves, they look a little cold out there.”
“Oh, okay,” I say, just hoping he’ll leave as quickly as possible. It doesn’t even really sink in what he said until the door is shut.
Snowmen?
I squint and cock my head. I haven’t made any snowmen. Not recently, anyhow. I didn’t see any when I went out front earlier, so instead I head into the kitchen and twitch open the curtain on my back door.
Outside, among my snow-covered garden beds, are two small snowmen.
Something about them isso familiar. Instead of coal like in cartoons, these two have rocks for their eyes and mouths, and one has a little crown woven out of pine branches on her head.
I instinctively know she’s asheand the other is ahe,because they remind me so strongly of two characters I used to dream about as a kid. A princess and her knight featured in everything I did—little stories I wrote, pictures I drew, and of course, my dreams. The girl, like in any conceited little girls’ stories, was named after me, and the knight was Seth.
Theyaren’tAda and Seth, of course, no one knows about them but me, but they make me think of them. Instead of feeling scared, like maybe Ishould be, I smile. As creepy as all of this has been, it feels like maybe whoever is doing all of this is just trying to make me happy. Lights and gifts aren’treallycreepy, just… thoughtful. Maybe I’m going about this all wrong… maybe instead of trying to help Tom catch whoever this person is, my… secret Santa, I should be thanking them.
Everything they’ve done seems like it’s geared toward trying to make me smile, and after dealing with Tom’s loud, performative “care” this feels… quieter. Kinder. Like what someone whoactuallyknows me might do to cheer me up. I certainly don’t like how they’ve gone about things, all secret, because that’s been creepy, but have I really been bitching about someone doing random acts of kindness?
I shake my head. No, Ada, this is creepy. It’screepy.It’s not sweet, it’s not thoughtful… even if two little snowmen and some Christmas lightsdoseem harmless enough.
At the very least, they aren’t surveillance cameras trained on my house.
