Odyssey Drive
When Heather moved into the dry California neighborhood, she felt like she could finally offer her son a home where he didn’t have to play firecracker or gunshot anymore. Of course he didn’t live with her anymore, but he might come back some day.
Some days after work, blurry-eyed, she hesitated at the wrong driveway. Low-pitched roofs, stucco walls with stone accents. Beige, and exactly the same. It was a welcome change from her last place. Her only complaint was the staked trees lining the street, small, unsightly, tied up like voodoo dolls.
On her first holiday weekend on the block, the neighbors hosted a party. Steak and macaroni sat on flimsy white paper plates under a blue EZ-Up tent. Camping chairs scattered along the sidewalk while kids threw a football. She wished her son could have made it. A neighbor thrust a red plastic cup into her hand. She brought several to her lips. She remembered the party fondly even though she couldn’t remember it all.
By fall, that summer BBQ felt distant. As did the neighbors. As did her son.
Her first warning had come as a note under her door: BE CAREFUL. She opened the door unsure how long it had been there. Her car sat across the street, not in the driveway where she left it. Her son still wasn’t home, so he couldn’t have moved it.
Another memory flashed, her trash bins vanishing and reappearing two days later. She asked a neighbor, they replied maybe she was mistaken.
But this morning, she found her mail opened and scattered across her beige marble kitchen island. Next to a letter opener that wasn’t hers. She stood frozen, staring at the reflective silver blade, sharp and topped with a pentagram.
Her phone sat in her palm, thumb hovering over the number 9. Her thumb pushed down but hesitated at one.
She placed her phone in her jean pocket and went to her office. She scrolled Facebook Marketplace for security cameras. Her eyes blurred the details: night vision, motion alerts, push notifications. She studied reviews until she reached for her ibuprofen.
A set of six cameras caught her attention. Three indoor. Three outdoor. She mentally walked the perimeter of her house deciding where to place them. She imagined one at the front door, one at the garage side door, and one in the backyard. Inside, one in the hallway, one in the kitchen, one in the office.
Her hand still gripping the mouse, the words Order Confirmed appeared. Her eyes locked on the white wall as she surveyed her house again. Staring straight ahead she paused at the master bedroom door. The floral lace pillows she neatly placed on her bed every morning, thrown on the floor.
She pushed herself up from the white leather chair and headed to her bedroom. “Oh good, I put them back,” she said. Something shiny lay in the middle of her bed. Her pentagram letter opener, out of place. Things always out of place. She’d thought when her son left that would stop happening. She picked it up and walked it back to the kitchen.
Mary Magdalen Smihula
Mary Magdalen Smihula is a Southern California writer whose work explores the psychological tension of everyday life. Her work appears in The Write Launch, Blood + Honey, Half and One, Paragraph Planet, and is forthcoming in BULL Magazine.