“No, not in these shoes. It’s nice to listen to you two,” I explained, but when I glanced into the back, Lyra was scowling. She didn’t say another word, either, not even when I parked and told them to come up to my apartment to wait there for their ride.
“You know, the one you ordered on your phone,” I said, but he shook his head.
“You just opened your car door. Did you check around before you did that?” he asked me.
“Um, no, I forgot.”
“Next time,” he suggested, and apparently he had already looked because we all got out. He held his sister’s hand as we crossed the street and he visually cleared the lobby and the stairwell before he let us enter either one. My hallway was also clear, but…
“Oh, no!” I froze and pointed at my apartment door, which gaped open.
“Camille, take my sister to the car,” Silas said immediately. “Lock the doors and start the engine. I’ll find out what’s happening. Go.”
“What?”
“Go,” he repeated and he looked Lyra. She did what he said and started to run back down the stairs, and I followed as fast as I could so that she wouldn’t be alone. I didn’t want to scare her but I was scared myself, and I had no idea what or who he might find. My door had been torn off the hinges like it had been kicked, and if someone had that much strength and violence in them?
“Try your handle and make sure it’s locked,” I told Lyra once we were in the car. I attempted to keep my voice steady.
“Silas won’t let anybody hurt him. Or me,” she announced. She sounded utterly confident and I wished that I felt the same way. I said that I was glad and I kept my eyes glued on the building, waiting, as she dove into her book.
Not much later, he did come out—and I felt my body sag and heard myself let out a huge breath. Since the car was still running, I rolled down the window. “What happened? Did you call the police yet?” I asked anxiously. “I didn’t want to do it while you were still inside.”
“It’s empty and I wouldn’t bother to call the cops. If the robbery’s not in progress, they probably won’t show. Want to come up and look?”
No, I did not, but I turned off the engine and slowly got out. Lyra jumped from the back and hopped over to her brother, and hetook her hand. I walked on her other side for safety as we went back to my apartment.
It was an utter mess. First I saw that everything had been pulled out of the cupboards and all my pots and pans lay scattered on the floor of the galley kitchen. The toaster had been thrown at the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the greyish paint, and it lay mangled on the floor. My plates and bowls were shattered into a mound of ceramic shards in the sink. The silverware had been flung into the living room where the couch was ripped open, every cushion split and leaking foam. My little dining table was overturned with two legs broken off; it seemed like the chairs had been raised up and then smashed down, so that they lay crumpled.
Silently, I walked through to the bedroom and bathroom, and it was worse. My makeup had been tossed around, broken, and crushed, making streaks and smears of colors across the walls. All my clothes were strewn on the floor and I could see that a few items had been ripped or torn. The picture of me with my parents had been flung like the toaster, but the metal frame had stuck in the wall so that it was impaled above my bed. I pulled it out and hugged it to my chest.
“The TV is still here,” Silas said, and I jumped in fright. “Sorry.” He spoke more quietly as he and Lyra stepped over a pile of clothes to join me. “They smashed it rather than take it, but it’s not worth much. Can you tell if anything’s gone? Did you have anything of value?”
“Not really.” I had turned so they wouldn’t see me crying, but he must have heard it in my voice because he put his hand on my shoulder.
“This fucking sucks,” he said, and to my horror, Lyra repeated that phrase exactly.
“Oh, no,” I said, and I wiped off my cheeks on a shirt I picked up from the floor. “This is bad but we won’t use that language. We’ll clean up and keep going. I mean,I’llclean up and keep going. Y’all don’t have to do it.” In my current state, I was letting my Kentucky accent emerge, and I had learned in law school to keep that in. Neutral, indeterminate speech was best.
“We’re going to stay and help,” he told me, and Lyra started to protest. “You can for a while and then read your book,” he said to her.
“Do you think it’s safe?” I asked. The door was off the hinges and there was no way to keep anyone out—of course, the door hadn’t done that even when it had been locked.
“I think the person accomplished his purpose,” he said. “We should be fine.”
“Silas won’t let anyone hurt me,” Lyra announced again, and I gave in. I didn’t want them to be in danger but I sure didn’t want to be alone, either.
“You were right,” he mentioned about half an hour later, as he slid my torn mattress back onto its bent frame. “You said you don’t have much stuff, and you really don’t.”
“And as far as I can tell, now that it’s neater, none of it’s gone,” I said. “Do you think that Dax…” I glanced at his sister, because somehow I felt unwilling to impugn my ex within her hearing. She didn’t know anything bad about him yet.
“I don’t think that wet washcloth has the strength to do this on his own,” Silas answered. “I bet that he sent some friends. Do you know your neighbors?”
“There’s only one other tenant on this floor and when I moved in and said hello, she cursed me. A real curse, like she was trying to hex me and not just using bad language,” I explained. “She must have heard this going on but she wouldn’t have intervened. The guys who live below this unit have huge parties every Saturday night. The base would sometimes shake Dax’s leopard picture off the wall, so they probably wouldn’t have noticed any commotion up here.”
“Yeah, this is a great place for you.” He snorted. “Good thing you’re done.”
“What?”
