“Hey, sweetheart. How was your day?”
“Good.”
I get the generic answer as Eliza runs down the school steps into my big hug.
“What did you learn today?”
She wriggles out of my arms and hands me her backpack in exchange for her snack bag. “I don’t remember.”
As usual. Never mind that I know Eliza got to pet a snake and a lizard and see a falcon because her teacher sent an email to all the parents saying the local urban wildlife rescue was coming to give a presentation to the classes today. Then she sent pictures of my daughter holding the snake with an enormous grin on her face.
At least I know almost every other adult outside the school is having the same conversation with their kid.
“Okay, well, I have one errand to run before?—”
The back of my neck prickles, and I snap my head around, looking for the source of the disquiet. But, like every time for the past few weeks, I don’t see anything. The only thing on the sidewalk is a mass of caregivers, teachers, and kids.
“Mom?”
Eliza’s question pulls my attention back, and I rub my neck to dispel the feeling still crawling there. She’s looking up at me with big eyes, one hand paused in her snack bag.
“I just thought I heard someone calling my name,” I answer smoothly, giving her a big smile and hooking my hand into the hanging loop on the top of her backpack. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
“You said we have an errand to run,” Eliza states around a mouthful of organic cheesy puffs.
“Right.”
Except now, I feel like going home and bolting the door behind us. I have no idea what’s been going on lately and what’s behind my feeling of being watched for the past few weeks.
“Can we get croissants for breakfast tomorrow on the way home?” Eliza asks. “Please, Mom?”
“We can see if they have any left. They probably only have plain left if you’re up for that.”
My daughter makes a sound of indecision, telling me she’d rather have a chocolate croissant, or maybe one of the raspberry kind, which are a specialty of the bakery we go to.
“What if we get the regular croissants, and we can add to them? Get our own jam, or go to the farmers’ market and find some fruit?”
“Oooh!” Eliza tugs on my arm and turns up eyes wide with excitement at me. “Can we add frosting and sprinkles?”
“Uh—” I should have known where this would go, and now I have to find a way out of this one.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a black sedan. It’s like any other on the street, save for the windows tinted so dark I can’t even see the driver’s face. The only weird thing about it is that it was parked outside the school. And now it’s going in the same direction we are. A little too slowly.
My gut gives a twist I can’t ignore. I feel ridiculous—why would anyone be following us—but the feeling won’t go away.
And neither does the sedan.
“Hey—let’s cut through the park, okay? I want to see all the colors.”
The neighborhood park is stuck between two old brick apartment buildings, but it’s big enough that I know we can get lost.
“Okay!” Eliza agrees happily, still munching on her puffs.
The park is busy today, a fact for which I’m secretly grateful. It’s a perfect fall day with a brushed blue sky, the temperature crisp, and the trees brilliant with their reds and golds and oranges.
“Look, Mom—a squirrel!”
Eliza shoves her snack into my hand and darts across the grass toward a fat squirrel perched on a tree branch, its tail up as it chitters angrily at us.
