“You saw the package?” he asks without a hello. His accent rolls from the block. He’s got a face like a boxer who retired early and decided to be kind.
“I did,” I say.
“Some guy came by just after six.” He scratches at his cap. “Asked if you were home. Wouldn't give a name. A suit that cost something. He had a jaw like he eats nails for breakfast.”
“Did he say why he wanted me?”
“He said he was a friend.” The super snorts. “Real friends don’t stand that close to a door. He had the walk. You know the walk.”
“I don’t want him near my kid,” I say.
“I figured. I told him you’re out. He was polite. He was polite, the kind of polite that could turn quick. Didn’t stick around, but I saw him outside a while after. In case.”
“In case of what?” I ask.
He shifts his weight. “In case he came back.”
“Thank you,” I say. “If you see him again, call me.”
He nods, eyes roving past my shoulder like he’s checking for a shadow. “You’ve got my number. Keep your chain on. That lock’s from the year of the flood.”
I close, set the chain, and slide the chair back. The kitchen feels too bright and not bright enough at the same time. I dim the overhead and turn on the task light by the mixer.
The shadows sharpen. I peer through the glass to the street, where yellow lamps cast soft circles on the gray asphalt. Cars in the lot sleep like babies. A bird cuts the dark with a quick wingbeat. Somewhere down the block, a repair truck grinds its gears, the sound splitting the silence in two. But there are no shadows under the lampposts, no ghost cars watching my window. I’d like to say it’s all a dream, only the box and the photograph sit exactly where I left them on the counter.
I take the note again and run my finger along the letters. There’s no smear. The pen’s new. The hand that wrote it didn’t shake.
The photo stares back at me. I could slide it into a drawer and call it an accident. I could pretend the note was for someone else. I could do what my mother once did with the overdue notices from suppliers and feed it to the first flame in the oven. None of it’ll make the line about the boy disappear.
I walk to Marco’s room and count the window locks. I tuck the blanket under his toes. I hate that a stranger put their hand on my door. I hate that a stranger might put their hand on my child’s life. Hate’s too soft a word. I taste copper and realize I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek.
I pace from the kitchen to Marco’s doorway and back again, palms skimming counters, eyes checking latches, and mindclicking through lists. He sleeps on his side, lip glossy from a candy cane, lashes stuck together where he rubbed his face. He sighs, murmursMamaonce, and my whole chest tightens like a fist.
I find Marco’s favorite die-cast truck on the coffee table and slip it into the pocket of my robe. The metal’s small and solid against my thigh, and somehow, that makes me feel steadier.
I press my ear to the door and listen for the elevator. Someone three floors up laughs. A bottle hits the recycling bin. A siren slides down the avenue and fades. The usual hum.
I set my phone camera to video and lean it against the sugar canister facing the door. If someone knocks again, I’ll want the timestamp and the shape. I stand a minute, then two, palms flat on the counter, not moving, just letting my mind slow from sprint to jog. My mother used to say that panic wastes flour. Flour’s too expensive to waste.
The second knock at the door startles me. Two taps this time, like a code. I don’t lift the chain. I ease to the peephole and hold still. Nothing. I open the door a hand’s span with the chain in place and look down.
A small box sits on the mat. No ribbon. The top’s dented at one corner. A dark smear runs along the side. It smells faintly of smoke. The hall’s empty, only the old bulb buzzing in its cage and the smear of snow from someone’s boots. I secure the chain again and take the box to the kitchen.
The lid lifts with a dry pop. Inside lies a die-cast truck, charred along one side, the same model as Marco’s, the same blue stripe, now warped. A thumbprint shows in the soot, preserved in fineash. The plastic windshield has sagged into a ripple. Paint has bubbled across the hood where the decal used to be.
My hand tingles as if pins and needles prickle my skin. I take Marco’s truck from my robe pocket, the one he drove along the grout lines this morning, and set it beside the burned one. The burned one’s a twin. Someone held it to a flame long enough to scar it, not destroy it. Long enough to say,I know what he loves.
I slide the charred truck back into the box and fold the lid, not wanting its ruined face out in the open. I sit down at the table and lace my fingers tight so I won’t break something just to hear it break. Anger and fear are easy. Motherhood isn’t, but it comes with a switch inside that flips when someone aims at your child. Once it goes over, it stays there.
I pull a pad from the drawer and write what I know. A man in a suit at my door at six. A package was left while we were out. The photo from Milan. Neat and deliberate handwriting. The second package came at one in the morning with a burned toy car, correct model. Someone’s watched us. Someone’s been close enough to see Marco at the window with his truck.
That someone looked like trouble, the super said. He knows trouble. He’s thrown trouble down the stairs when it needed a push. I think of security cameras in the hall, and my hope withers. The building’s cameras have been dead since a storm in September. There’s always a reason the repair gets pushed to next week. I think of Ren’s careful eyes and the fact that he locks the back door twice whenever he takes the trash out at night. I think of Maya and the way she looked over her shoulder as we left the venue, because experience says look once more.
I’ve always planned for the worst in the kitchen. Backup flour. Backup pilot light. Backup plan for too-wet dough. Outside thekitchen, I’ve tried to keep my maps tidy. I left a part of my life, folded it neatly, and put it on the top shelf. I didn’t expect it to open on its own and fall on my head five years later.
The laptop sits under the counter in its sleeve. I pull it out, plug it in, and open it. The login chime feels too bright for two in the morning. I block the camera with a sticky note. Paranoid and practical share the apartment now. They pay equal rent.
I search like I’m looking up a recipe. Wrenleigh. Service schedules. First trains north. Buses. Rideshares. Weather advisories. The hint of a storm that’d strand us. The last thing I need is to be stranded. I need to move. My mother will call this foolish, and then she’ll put on a pot of coffee. She’ll make up the bed in the back room and set out a small stack of the towels I like because they’re thin and smell like lilac soap from the corner pharmacy.
