As he ran away from my house
After he tried to open the locked basement door
After I heard a racket and went out on the deck to
investigate, thinking the kerfuffle was from curious racoons stealing from full
bird feeders
After scolding myself once more for not going to Olive’s
soccer game
After sitting down with the most complex knitting pattern I’ve
ever attempted and falling deep into concentrated counting of the scattered
arrays of purple purls and white knits,
I yelled at him.
Hey, what are you doing? I yelled as he sprinted from underneath
the deck toward the creek.
Do you need something? I yelled as he changed direction and sprinted
across the field toward my sisters’ houses.
I whispered to myself.
Mostly curse words.
What in the hell? I whispered as I bolted for my car.
Son of a bitch. I whispered as I scanned the field and road
for sight of him.
(This, incidentally, is the first and last curse I ever
heard from my mother, intensely whispered as another car ran a light and almost
plowed into our children-filled, fake-wood-covered-panel station wagon.)
What in the actual fuck? I whispered to myself as my brave
sister and I scanned around her house and she checked for him in her garage and
locked the door behind her.
I spoke calmly
As I called the sheriff’s office, my second sister, my
nephew
As I hugged Harry, and told him it was not his fault, as he
was in the front yard and the intruder came from the back yard, from the fields
surrounding us, through the creek, and that he was still the goodest boy. Harry, not the intruder, but you knew that,
didn’t you?
I told myself
That this was an isolated incident
That this man didn’t come looking for me
That he was probably looking for something to steal
That he would have found nothing of value to him in our
basement, it being filled with boxes of holiday decorations and old
furniture someone might need someday and toys I just can’t part with and
canning jars
That if the door had been unlocked and he was angry at not
finding anything worthy of stealing he would have come upstairs and Harry would
not have stopped him with his goofy happy face and furious bark because he was
in the front yard and still the bestest boy and
Worst case scenario.
I whisper to myself
And list the things he did steal
– the peace I cherish
in this house that no burning candle, or burning sage or burning stick of palo
santo has yet to return
- the comfort of sitting on the couch under a quilt with a
book or a good BBC crime drama or a piece of knitting without constantly glancing
right, toward the French doors, expecting someone I’ve never seen before to be
there, pulling pushing pulling pushing
on the door lever
- the tranquility of waking up in the middle of the night in
this warm and quiet and dark house, and going back to sleep surrounded by love
and too many pillows on the bed
– the pluck I’ve developed through all the years of Clay’s
travels, to be able to stay by myself, do for and by myself
– the joy of open doors, open windows, open garage, letting
in the spring and the warmth and the robins who are determined to build their
nest in the garage.
And I know
if he had asked, I would have given him a sandwich or a twenty or a box of Christmas decorations.
Peace
