The sound of your daughter’s blood-curdling scream awakens you from your night’s sleep. Initially you think the worst, but as you get yourself together to go up the hall, you hope and pray that Chloe is only having a bad dream. “I’m coming, honey,” you scream as you scramble around your bedroom searching for your houseshoes. Why do six-year-olds always have the worst dreams, you think, as you finally find your slippers under the bed. No more scary movies for Lil Miss, you decide as you adjust your robe. You reach for your bedroom door and you hear another door slam somewhere downstairs, and the hair on your arms seem to all stand up straight. Sprinting full-on to Chloe’s room you enter and see your daughter safe but staring out the window at two men sprinting full speed away from the house.
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Lying half-awake, half-sleep, it seems as if you can hear your sister crying a painful scream. But with Stone Temple Pilots playing from the headphones that hang awkwardly from your neck and face, it was a little hard to distinguish. When you hear your mother’s voice, “I’m coming, honey,” you realize that you did hear your sister scream. Snatching the headphones from your head you sit up bolt right as you try to assess what’s going on. It’s gotta be maybe 2:30 in the morning, because you just got in the bed around 1:45, and it seems you couldn’t have gotten more than forty-five minutes sleep. After a brief moment you snatch up and head towards your sister’s room. Once you arrive you see mom and your sister Chloe both staring out of Chloe’s bedroom window. When Mom notices you she says, “We’ve had burglars.”
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While you and Chloe are both looking out the window there’s a sound behind you and it’s your son, Nathan, barging in the room with a panicked look on his face. You love your fifteen-year-old son just as much as you do Chloe, but he’s been very difficult the last few months so you are short and to the point with him. “We’ve had burglars,” is all you say as you turn your attention back to Chloe. “Are you okay, sweetie? What happened?” You look at Chloe tenderly, knowing that when frightened, Chloe will easily become bottled up and extremely quiet, almost impossible to talk to. She sobs into your arms, “A man with a mask was in my room.” The thought of someone in your six-year-old daughter’s room invades your thoughts and you almost panic. You take three deep breaths and your heart slows down a bit. You look into Chloe’s eyes and tell her that everything’s gonna be alright and you ask Nathan to hurry and call 911. You don’t turn away from your daughter but you hear your son’s footsteps after he says, “OK, Mom,” and exits the room. “Honey, what was he doing in here,” you ask and Chloe explains that she heard a noise that woke her and she saw someone standing by her closet door. “He was standing still watching me and when he saw that I was woke he left out kinda fast like he was scared,” is what she tells you. “I started screaming and then I heard someone outside, so I went to the window and that’s when you came in.” You watch your daughter as she tells you these things and you are flooded with relief all over again now that she’s safe. Once again you hug your daughter and tell her that you’re proud of her and that she did the right thing. It’s sinking in that someone was actually inside your house. Were both guys inside? Were they trying to hurt Chloe? So many questions enter your head but what you now feel is an intense longing for your husband and the father of your kids, and an anger that is just as intense now that he is incarcerated.
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Burglars! Disbelief fills your head as you watch your mother and sister. There is no way this is happening. This can’t be true. Chloe surely is mistaking her dream for reality. No one has burglarized the house. We’ve never had burglars. Standing in your sister’s room you think it’s gotta only be a dream. She starts to describe what happened and now you think maybe it’s true. When Chloe tells Mom that the man had on a mask your body starts to tense up. Be cool, you tell yourself, this could be a coincidence. Most burglars put on masks. You can only stare at your mom and sister even though their backs are to you. When your mom tells Chloe that everything is gonna be alright you feel like this is far from the truth. Tiny beads of sweat start to appear on your forehead even though it’s cool in Chloe’s room. “Nathan, hurry and go call 911,” your mom instructs you, and all you can say is, “OK, mom,” before quietly leaving the room. You can’t make sense of any of this. You don’t know how they could have gotten into your home. And of all the rooms, why would they be in your sister’s room? When you finally make it to your room you can only look at your cell phone, sitting on the nightstand beside your bed. You walk closer to the nightstand trying to think what to say. Was anything stolen? Mom doesn’t even know if anything’s missing. Finally you grab the phone, dial 911, and when the dispatcher answers you say, “There’s been a break-in here at 344 Hemlock Street. The intruders just got away on foot. Can you please send an available unit to this address. Thank you,” and you hang up. For some reason you don’t want to talk to the police. You really don’t want to talk to anybody. You already know that you’re going to have plenty explaining to do. Especially when your mom finds out that you know who broke in the house and all of this is your fault…
