Lily

She wanted to let the dogs out one last time before bed. They ran out, barked and ran through the piles of leaves. “I’ve got to remember to clean up the yard this weekend,” she thought.
She looked over at her plants lined up against the house on the wooden picnic table. “Hello my Lily,” she said. Even though she knew that it sounded crazy, she thought that talking to her plants be good for them.

Her smallest dog stood by the door in an attempt to get back inside as quickly as she gave permission; it was colder outside than she thought it would be. She said, “Come on,” and gestured toward the door. The other dog hurried in behind her. She locked the back door but left the light on. She closed the dog gate so the dogs would stay in the kitchen. She turned off the TV and the living room lights. She looked over at the kitchen table and at the things that she would have to clean up tomorrow. Her husband left an empty cereal bowl on the table, his shoes and socks were under the coffee table. She checked garage door and locked all three locks, two deadbolts and the door knob lock. She closed the door to the laundry room and turned off the vent to the half bathroom. She was afraid of the dark and only turned off one light when another was on in her pathway. She couldn’t go out to the shed in the backyard alone to get things on her own, she had to call her husband to help her do this. She had visions of creepy people hiding in shadows. She thought about ghosts haunting her backyard or about ghosts walking though the front of her house on their way somewhere.

When she was young she was playing with her cousins in her grandparent’s backyard when they saw someone in the storage shed. A woman in a white dress was curled up and sitting on an old table, her bare feet on the lawnmower. As she watched her, the woman put a finger to her mouth, “Shhhhhh” she said, shaking and clearly upset. She ran to tell her grandfather, who talked to the woman who was hiding from her abusive boyfriend. In the end he escorted her away.

Last week when she went into her car the glove compartment was ajar. Thinking that the latch was broken, she started the car, which informed her that a door was still open. She leaned over and closed the passenger side door, confused and knowing that no one had been a passenger since that weekend and it was Wednesday. She texted her husband, “Did you get something from my car last night?” His response came when she was already at work, he called her and told her that no, he hadn’t, but that the police had been talking to all of the neighbors about someone going through their unlocked cars.

Now she locked everything. She grabbed her purse before heading upstairs to click the lock button on her car alarm panel just in case she might have forgotten to earlier. She left the front porch light on and locked the front door.

At three her husband hears something, he’s up and looking around. “Don’t go outside!” she yells. “Call the police if you see anything.” She knew he might try to do something rash in anger. He was the one who elected the “prosecute” box on the police report they filed. She got up, she was wide awake now, sitting on the top of the stairs. It was four a.m. She stared out the windows at the neighbor’s car, thinking that she would surely see someone soon and call the local police, a number which she recently programmed into her phone. Her husband let the dogs walk around and listen for noises. He looked outside through the curtains without caution. After some time he comes back upstairs. “We should keep all of the lights on from now on, and not lock the dogs in.” She agreed. “You didn’t hear that? Like a loud bang?” She hadn’t. “I also have to fix that other outside light by the cars, maybe put a flood light.” They headed for bed.

Even though she had to wake up at 6:30 for work, she was wide awake. She tossed and turned until she was uncomfortable in her own bed, then got up and did what she normally did when she couldn’t sleep. She grabbed her pillow and headed for the guest bedroom. “What’s the matter babe? Can’t sleep?” her husband sometimes was easily awakened when she got up. “No, I’m wide awake.” She even felt a little happy, like she was filled with energy, she thought she might just stay up and make a big breakfast, iron her clothes, take more time to do her makeup and hair. She would try to sleep first, since she knew she would just crash later in the evening if she didn’t.

She laid on the twin bed in the guest bedroom, curled up and faced the wall. She could hear an airplane in the distance and nothing else, she relaxed. She heard a small creek come from the direction of the door or the closet door, she wasn’t sure. She looked over quickly, and stared at the door for some time. “It could have been nothing.” She thought. She stared for what seemed like fifteen minutes and turned back around. After awhile she was started to get a little drowsy and knew that she would soon get up and head back to her own bed, as this was more comfortable and she might not be able to hear her alarm from the guest room. When she was about to grab her pillow and get up, a soft whisper, an unfamiliar, shaky voice, warm and humid and close to her ear said, “Hello my Lily.”