The invasion of my life did not begin with a shattered window or a kicked-in door. It began with a complaint, delivered over a white picket fence that I had always assumed was a barrier against the chaos of the world.
It was a Tuesday afternoon in mid-October. The air was crisp, smelling of burning leaves and approaching winter. I pulled my sedan into the driveway, the gravel crunching beneath the tires—a sound that usually signaled the end of a long day as a Senior Risk Assessment Analyst for Sentinel Insurance. My job was to calculate probabilities, to predict disasters before they happened, and to place a monetary value on loss. I was good at it. I found comfort in the cold logic of numbers because, unlike life, numbers didn’t lie, and they certainly didn’t leave you.
She was waiting by the fence, her knuckles white as she gripped the painted wood. Her face was tight, a mask of irritation that seemed to deepen the wrinkles around her mouth.
“Your house is very noisy during the day,” she snapped, dispensing with pleasantries. “It’s annoying, Elena. It’s becoming impossible to nap.”
I blinked, the fatigue of the workday momentarily suspended by confusion. I forced a polite, albeit strained, smile. “Mrs. Collins, that’s impossible. There shouldn’t be anyone home. I work from eight to six. You know this.”
She crossed her arms, a gesture of defiance that made her look like a schoolmarm scolding a truant child. “Then explain the screaming. I heard shouting. A woman’s voice. And the television. It was blaring.”
The smile vanished from my face. A cold prickle of unease danced down my spine. “Screaming?”
“Yes. Loud enough to wake the dead,” she muttered, then seemed to catch herself, her eyes flicking to my black mourning attire, a habit I hadn’t quite shaken even though it had been two years. “I… I assumed you had guests. But it happens every other day.”
I looked past her, toward my house. It stood there, a two-story colonial with drawn blinds, looking innocent and vacant. My husband, Mark, and I had bought it five years ago. Since his death, the house had become less of a home and more of a museum of our life together—a silent, dust-mote-filled monument to what used to be.
“I’ll check it out,” I said, my voice sounding hollow. “Maybe… maybe the TV timer is malfunctioning.”
I walked to my front door, the keys heavy in my hand. I unlocked the deadbolt, the click echoing loudly in the quiet street. I stepped inside. The air was still. The security panel blinked green: Armed.
Everything was exactly where I had left it. The coaster on the coffee table. The throw pillow indented from where I had sat the night before. The silence was absolute, heavy, and suffocating. I checked the television; it was off. I checked the back door; it was locked.
I stood in the center of the living room, feeling foolish. Mrs. Collins was getting old. Her hearing was likely playing tricks on her, or perhaps she was hearing the college students three houses down. I exhaled, dropping my keys into the ceramic bowl by the door.
But as I walked into the kitchen to pour a glass of water, I stopped.
On the stainless steel drainboard of the sink, there was a single drop of water. Not a puddle, just a bead, clinging to the metal. I touched it. It was wet.
I hadn’t used the sink since 7:30 AM. It was now 6:15 PM. In the dry heat of the house, a drop of water should have evaporated hours ago.
I stared at that droplets, my heart hammering a sudden, violent rhythm against my ribs. It was a small thing, an insignificant variable in the equation of my day. But in risk assessment, we learn that catastrophes are rarely caused by one massive failure; they are the result of a thousand small, unnoticed fractures.
The house, usually my sanctuary, had transformed into a labyrinth of shadows. Every creak of the settling floorboards sounded like a footstep. The hum of the refrigerator sounded like a whisper. I lay in the center of my king-sized bed—Mark’s side pristine and untouched—clutching the duvet to my chin.
I was an analyst. I dealt in facts.
Fact: The alarm was set.
Fact: The doors were locked.
Fact: Mrs. Collins heard screaming.
Fact: There was water in the sink.
My mind spun scenarios, each more ludicrous than the last. A ghost? I didn’t believe in them, though God knows I had tried to contact Mark enough times in the months following his accident. A squatter? How would they get past the alarm? Continue reading…
