When they came back into the house, Stephanie told her children to finish whatever reading they had left to do and get ready for bed while she cleaned up everything. As they huddled upstairs, she headed to the dining room. She cleared the dining room table, then scraped food off of the plates and into the trash before placing them in the dishwasher.
“This kitchen is a mess,” she said. She went for the broom and got the place together, sweeping the floor and wiping off the countertops. When she finished, she lifted the bag of trash out of the bin and set it outside the back door for Timothy to take out in the morning.
Silence consumed the first floor, allowing Stephanie to ponder some of the things they’d talked about over dinner. She looked up toward the ceiling, noticing her children’s footsteps had long since faded. She truly hoped her mother’s comments and suspicious glares at her father didn’t rub off too much on the kids. More than anything, Stephanie wanted her three children to see not only this house, but the town of Moorestown, as their home. The first week or so had been off to a good start, so she wanted to keep the momentum going.
“You know what, Stephanie?” she said to herself. In thought, she bit her bottom lip and decided she’d do something special for her children. Snacks and milk before they went to bed sounded like a nice treat. Quickly, she rummaged through her cabinets as she tried to remember where she’d put her cooking trays. Yanking a bag of cookies out of the freezer, she turned the oven on and shoved them inside. As they cooked, she poured tall glasses of milk for each of her children, set them on a tray, and went for the gummy snacks she kept on the top shelf in the cabinet. “They’ve earned it,” she reasoned with herself. “It’s been a long week for them.”
Ten minutes later, the cookies finished baking. Stephanie slid then onto paper towels, turned on the dishwasher, then turned out the lights before heading upstairs with a tray. As to be expected, Jane and Jonathan were thrilled when they’d seen their mother step into their bedroom with a tray of snacks and glasses of milk. She told them to set up and enjoy their bedtime snack, but this was in no way a reason for them to be up all night. Jane mentioned that she needed to finish some schoolwork. Stephanie happily obliged but made her and Jonathan promise to go to bed as soon as they finished because they were up later than usual. Stephanie then slipped out of the room and headed down to Timothy.
After giving Timothy his snacks, Stephanie stepped into her own bedroom. She looked out of the window for a moment, admiring the view of a sleeping Moorestown. She smiled, hoping that this all worked out—that she and her children would be able to have a good life here. “Mom,” she said, shaking her head and chuckling under her breath. In many ways, her mother’s negative comments motivated her to prove something, even if she really didn’t have to prove anything.
Because Stephanie had always been a stickler about having food in the bedrooms, she went and collected the tray from Timothy and checked her children’s sides of the bed. She gathered up their glasses then headed back downstairs, turning sharply at the landing and heading back to the kitchen.
Stephanie froze in place when she discovered the kitchen lights on and the dishwasher door laying out open. With a wrinkled forehead, she set the glasses in the sink and looked around, trying to recall her steps before heading upstairs. She distinctly remembered putting the tray of snacks together. She remembered oh-so-well closing the dishwasher door and starting it. Then she had turned the kitchen lights out. After all, darkness seemed to be the only thing behind her when she’d come out of the kitchen and headed upstairs.
“I must’ve been thinking I did it,” she said to herself, confused. “I thought I did.”
Something didn’t sit well with Stephanie. She started to wash the glasses, but stopped, wanting to know if perhaps one of her children had come downstairs while she was in her bedroom. It was far-fetched, especially since she wasn’t in there all that long, but she knew beyond a doubt that she’d started the dishwasher and turned the lights off.
“Timothy,” Stephanie said, approaching her son’s bedroom door when she zipped back upstairs. She stepped inside. “Did you go downstairs while I was in my room? Like within the last twenty minutes or so.”
The blank look on Timothy’s face said it all. The boy shook his head. “No,” he said. “Why?”
Stephanie looked down at the floor, having been so sure Timothy would have been the one to go down to the kitchen. She simply shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, turning back toward the hallway. “No reason.”
“Okay, Mom,” Timothy said.
“Sorry for bothering you, sweetie,” Stephanie said. She then headed down the hall, coming to Jane’s room. The little girl had just turned out her bedroom light, so Stephanie knew she was still up. “Jane?” she said. She stepped into the room and turned on the light. “Did you just come from downstairs or something?”
Jane leaned up and looked at her mother, smiling with a full stomach. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I haven’t even left my room, Mom.”
“Hmm,” Stephanie said. “Okay, then.” She rushed over to her daughter’s side and kissed her head before turning the light out and heading down to Jonathan’s room. Deductive reasoning told her Jonathan had been downstairs. He was always the adventurous one of her three children—the one to be up in the middle of the night even when he was supposed to be doing his homework or going to bed.
“Jonathan?” she asked as she pushed his bedroom door open. “Sweetie, if you got something out of the dishwasher, why didn’t you close it back and start it again? Do you remember I showed you what buttons to push? You also left the kitchen lights on.”
Jonathan looked up at his mother with a blank face. “Uh, Mom,” he said, “I didn’t go downstairs or anything like that.”
Stephanie’s eyes bulged as she tried to make sense of it all. “Oh,” she said. “You didn’t?”
Jonathan simply shook his head and went back to looking into his computer screen.
Stephanie excused herself, backing out of the room, thinking that maybe Jonathan didn’t want to tell her the truth for some reason. She headed back toward the staircase, paused at the top, and looked down into the grand foyer. The dishwasher was going at the moment, but something still didn’t feel right. The sound of footsteps then came up behind her, causing her to swiftly turn around. It was Timothy.
“Mom, is everything okay?” Timothy asked.
Stephanie peered back down into the foyer, silent for a long moment. “Yeah, Timothy,” she said. “Just go back to bed, okay? Just go back to bed. I’m just going to make sure the doors are locked and the windows are shut.”
Timothy watched as his mother descended the staircase.
Stephanie checked the front door and the windows in the living room, dining room, and den. They were all shut and locked. She then tugged at the back door, looking out at the large back yard—frozen in time, in many ways. Once she made sure each window and door was locked, she passed back through the kitchen. Water swooshed about in the dishwasher and the lights were off. She headed upstairs to bed, thinking of what she’d do with her day tomorrow.
Chapter 3
Since that night, an eerie feeling set at the back of Stephanie’s mind, much like a gloomy cloud resting in the sky. She enjoyed living in the house—figuring out what little things here and there she would change. When another free day finally came along, she forced herself to get around to repainting the den. The room was in bad need of being made over. And since she’d never lived in a house with a den, Stephanie wasn’t quite sure what she’d do with the room.
One Saturday, when Stephanie finished planting a garden in the back yard, she’d been looking around for her tools when Jane came running around to the back of the house. She had just come from playing with another little girl a couple of houses down the street and remembered exactly what her mother had told her about today.
I know I had that shovel close by. There’s no way I went and put that thing back in the shed.
I wouldn’t have done that.
She looked at the remaining two rows of dirt she wanted to turn over again, still confused as to what she’d done with her shovel.
Never in her life, before moving to this house, had she been so forgetful about so many things. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought she was going crazy because it seemed as if a day couldn’t pass by without something being out of place. “Stephanie, you need a vacation,” she said to herself. “You need a vacation, girl.”
“Hi, Mom!” Jane said.
Stephanie turned to her daughter and smiled. “Well, hello, little girly,” she said. “How was playing with Kelly?”
Jane breezed over the details of the day, making sure to mention the few new friends she’d made at Kelly’s house. She then reminded her mother that her summer day class was due to go on a field trip next week. “So, Mom,” the little girl said as she finished up with her story. “You know what today is, right?”
Stephanie turned away, pretending to get amnesia. “No,” she answered. “What is today? Is it my birthday?”
Jane laughed. “No, Mom,” she said. “You know it’s not your birthday. You know what today is, so don’t act like you forgot. You know you told me that we were going to get a dog today. The animal shelter, remember?” She put her hands on her hips and stuck her chin out.
Stephanie groaned softly, knowing very well what she’d told Jane. “Does it have to be today?” she asked. “You see me out here doing this gardening and stuff, Jane. I’m pretty tired.”
“I know, Mom,” Jane said, swaying side to side. “But you promised. I really want a dog and you said we could get one once we’re all settled into the house. And we’re settled, I think.”
Stephanie could kick herself, wishing she hadn’t made such a promise. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Let me finish up and get ready and we’ll go.”
Stephanie watched as her little girl ran off and toward the house, letting herself into the back door. She really wasn’t all that thrilled about having a dog. After all, taking care of three children was enough.
Yet she knew her children, especially the twins, had been having a particularly hard time since Brett died. She went ahead and finished up with what she was doing and headed into the house. Just as she’d been about to step onto the back porch, she found the shovel she’d been looking for. It leaned up against the back of the house, to the side of the back door and directly below the kitchen window. Stephanie paused and looked at it, wondering how in the world it had gotten all the way up here.
“I must have put it there when I went inside,” she muttered. “It definitely couldn’t have walked up here all by itself. It had to be me.”
Timothy arrived home within a few minutes. Before Stephanie knew it, her three children waited in the living room while she hurried with her shower and changed her clothes. Thirty minutes later, they were pulling up at the animal shelter.
Stephanie was a little apprehensive about getting a dog from an animal shelter, but she didn’t feel as if she were in the position to purchase a dog from a breeder. Her heart tugged for just a moment when she thought of the many unwanted dogs just waiting on their forever home.
Just a few minutes later they pulled up into the parking lot. She gave out some instructions so choosing a dog wouldn’t get out of control.
A shelter representative showed Stephanie and her three children around the shelter. No matter how tired she became, she wanted to let the kids take as much time as they needed to pick out a dog. Finally, after nearly twenty minutes of looking into sad, slanted eyes with flapping ears and wagging tails, they picked out a Labrador mix puppy.
“This one,” Jane said confidently. “I like him.”
“I like him,” said Timothy with his normal reserve.
“Oh, yes! Him, him, him!” yelled Jonathan.
“Jonathan, calm down. Don’t scare him or the others. Don’t yell.” Stephanie touched the top of the boy’s head and ruffled his hair.
Stephanie probed the shelter representative about the dog’s history as well as its tendencies. From what she saw and heard, the dog looked like a good bet, so she went ahead and filled out the necessary adoption paperwork. He did have a really sweet face, too.
Within another thirty minutes, Stephanie walked out of the shelter with her three children and their new dog. They chose a name on the way home. The little bundle of fur and joy would from now on be known as Scout.
Stephanie yawned but knew she still had quite a bit more to do with her day. She couldn’t give in to her loss of sleep over the odd things that had been happening in the house. She’d found that her mind wandered back to the events she’d noticed and couldn’t come up with any logical explanation. She tried to let it go, but it nagged her enough that she couldn’t.
The joyful banter faded into the background as she focused on her next chores. The first thing on the list was getting supplies for Scout. They had a little starter kit that came with the dog, but the small bag of food wouldn’t last long. So, she decided they’d make a stop at the nearest pet store so they could buy what they’d need.
“So, who knows the best way to decide who will feed Scout every day? And walk him?”
Silence.
“Really? Nobody has any ideas?”
“Well, Timothy is the oldest. He’s the smartest, too. He could take care of it.” Jonathan took a sly look at his brother.
“That’s not really fair, is it, Jonathan?”
He shrugged and scratched the dog behind the ear.
“I suppose we’ll set up a schedule. Each one of you will have responsibilities every day. Understood?”
Nods and grunts would have to be taken as agreement. She sighed and pulled into a parking spot.
Stephanie knew the dog was probably going to wind up being more work for her, she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed seeing the way her children’s eyes lit up in the backseat as they played with the dog.
Once inside the pet store, they got dog food, a small bed, blankets, treats, and toys for Scout before heading home. Stephanie had been getting the bags out of the trunk when her three children ran after the dog, chasing him up the walkway and onto the porch. Once inside, she’d started debating about whether she wanted Scout to be an indoor dog or if it would be better to find a way to keep him outside. By the time she’d gotten her thoughts together, it was too late. The kids already had Scout upstairs, probably playing in their bedrooms like he belonged there. Decision made.
As Stephanie was piling the bags onto the kitchen table, deciding to get to them later, Jane came running back downstairs. “Mom, can I call Grandma?” she asked. “I want to tell her about Scout. She’s gonna love him!”
Stephanie snickered. She could only imagine her mother’s reaction. Nonetheless, she pulled her mother’s name up on her contacts and handed the phone to Jane. Jane walked away, talking proudly to her grandmother about Scout and what a pretty dog he was.
Stephanie started getting dinner ready but had so much on her mind. She thought about what part of the house she’d want to redo next. Often, she paused what she was doing and looked out at the garden she was working on. She couldn’t help but daydream about when she and Brett were young, living in a Chicago apartment. Brett had always talked about having a garden, but they’d never gotten around to it.
The doorbell rang, startling Stephanie. She turned the burner down then went to see who it was. Much to her surprise, it was her mother.
“Hey, Mom,” she said, opening the door.
Eloise stepped inside. “Hey, Stephanie,” she said. “How are you? It’s my understanding that you all have a dog now. Where is he? Jane just called me and talked my ear off about it, so I figured I’d stop by and see while I was out and about.”
Stephanie chuckled, pointing toward the staircase. “As far as I know, they’re upstairs with the dog,” she said, shaking her head.
Eloise looked around the house with questioning eyes. The look reminded Steph
anie of how her mother had gazed around the shabby home when she and her father had come over for dinner.
“Really, Stephanie, are you sure about this house?”
“Mom, the house is fine,” Stephanie said. “It’s not too big and it won’t be too much work. I know it needs a few repairs and updates, but I’ll get to it.”
“No, I mean the dog, Stephanie,” Eloise said. “I’m just not sure if you having a dog is a good idea. You’re already a single mother with three kids. And you moved them to a new town that they don’t know. Seriously, Stephanie, a dog just might end up being more work than you can handle.”
Stephanie chuckled as she shook her head and zipped away toward the kitchen.
“Oh, Mom, they love him already. It’ll be good for them, I think.”
Eloise yelled up the steps to her grandchildren and then followed her daughter back to the kitchen. “I’m serious, Stephanie,” she said, now standing in the kitchen. “You don’t think that adding a dog to things will be too much work for you?”
“Mom, you know,” Stephanie said, finally getting annoyed. “It’s not too much work for me, like you’d obviously like to think. It’s all going to be okay. I didn’t get the dog with me in mind. You know I got it for the kids. It won’t make up for losing their father, but it’ll give them something to care about.”
“I know, I know,” Eloise said. “I thought about that, Stephanie. I really did.”
“I’m trying to make this as easy as I can for them,” Stephanie explained. “I don’t really know this town, either, but you and Dad love it here. So, I figured a dog would make it, you know, homier, I guess. They can walk the dog around the neighborhood and get to know more people. I think I saw a dog park not too far from here with some kids playing with their dogs.”
“Yeah, I know the park,” Eloise said. “And I get what you’re saying, Stephanie. I just don’t want you to overwork yourself or anything like that.”
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