Coming into the house this afternoon with my car keys in my hand and Luke in my arms, I hear a bump. Like the sound I routinely make when tripping over the laundry basket on the way to the bathroom in the dark of the night.
I freeze.
Cat, I tell myself. This is a good reason to have a cat. Not because they’ll protect you from intruders, but because you can blame random bumps in the night on your often-nocturnal roommate. (This works great to earn you piece of mind until they stare off at what is observably nothing from the foot of your bed at 3 a.m. and start to hiss and raise their fur.)
I peer around the kitchen doorway. Meeko is passed out in her cat bed with the unmistakable and commonplace look of an animal that has not moved in a good while and has no current ambitions to do otherwise.
And now the hairs standing up on the back of my neck are joined by the thudding of my heart in my chest.
This is one of those instances where I dislike being a girl. If there is anyone in my house who ought not be there, the odds of that person being bigger and stronger than me are extraordinarily high.
I slide Luke on to one hip. He lays his head on my shoulder. “What was that, Mommy?” he asks, blinking his eyes.
Okay, flight or fight.
This situation is made far more difficult because I know it’s likely a harmless noise. Not the cat, no. But I have a fairly cluttered house, and my precarious stacks that count for “straightening up” do occasionally topple.
Think logically, Shannon.
Most of my small house is viewable from the kitchen and I stop to take an assessment. Doors locked. Windows shut and intact. Living room looks no more ransacked that the average house with a little boy living in it. Laptop is where I left it. Stereo is undisturbed. I take a deep breath and few more steps into the living room. My bedroom is in the disorder in which I left it, and Luke’s room is likewise empty of unquantifiable disturbance.
That leaves the back room. Better than an attic, basement, or garage, but still, stupid-girl-investing-noise-in-horror-movie comes to mind.
“Honey, go into your room for a minute.”
Luke slides to the ground. “What are you looking for, Mommy?”
“Don’t worry about it, honey. Just go in your room. I’ll be right back.”
Deep breath.
I step into the hallway, past the washer and dryer and towards the back room, where the server and sewing machine live and where we fold in our house guests when we happen to have them.
I take a cursory look around. This room is messy. This room is always messy. If you’ve ever seen it unmessy, it’s because I knew you were coming over.
I back out of the room and check on Luke. Playing with cars on the floor. I grab the phone and dial my husband’s work number.
“This is going to sound stupid, but stay on the phone with me for a minute while I look in the closet.”
“Okay...”
I return to the back room. I poke all the way to the back of the closet and peek behind the futon. Bathroom door is shut. Another deep breath and I pop the door open. Nada.
“It’s okay,” I tell my husband and myself. “Nothing here.”
I hang up the phone and walk to the kitchen, with my heart still beating in my throat. I pick up the 4x4 rubik’s cube and give it a turn. I keep messing it up and resolving it until I’ve hit both parity conditions and met their respective solutions. Heart rate is slowing, but it’s still located in my throat and not my chest.
I remember once when I was a kid and my older sister was watching me, she scooped me up suddenly and said we were leaving.
I don’t remember what scared her, if she heard a noise or thought she saw something but we were home alone, and put me on her back and we went running off down the street away from the house. She tried to make it seem like no big deal, but she was scared, and I wasn’t young enough or dumb enough to fail to notice.
It was nothing that time as well, but that heart pounding fear arrives quick and dissipates slowly. And kids are sharp – more intuitive that you’d guess for a subset of people who routinely eat their own boogers. Luke keeps close to me. He asks for my cube and I give it to him. We solve it together. Eventually I upgrade to a cup of tea and ball of yarn. The dark corners become less foreboding and the commonplace ticks and sighs of the house become more ordinary. They don’t entirely slip off my radar all together though. Nor does Luke’s exact location. Even the useless cat who still hasn’t deemed us worthy to lift her head.
Funny, the house has been encroached upon by nothing more or less than my own adrenaline and still I count is as a trespass.