Break-In

Carol stood on the front porch waving, watching taillights disappear into the dark through the first fat flakes of November. Marmot had received an early dump of snow this year, and Dan and the kids had been eager to hit the slopes. With winter’s opening act forecast to fly in fury across the prairies overnight, she had tried to convince them to wait until morning to make the four-hour drive. Dan insisted it would be better to beat the stormy roads and weekend traffic, and she hoped the weather would hold until they arrived safely in Jasper.

Carol was slightly disappointed to sit out the first trip of the season, but winter retained the rights to the majority of the Canadian calendar, and there were many snowy ski weekends to look forward to in the long months ahead.

“Please come with us,” Dan had pleaded a day earlier, while the boys flung mashed potatoes at one another across the table.

She reminded him of her desperate need to catch up on work, though truthfully she was looking forward to three full days of uninterrupted ‘me time.’ Life on an acreage with three boys under the age of twelve left her shockingly short of seconds for self-care.

“I’ll be fine Dan, really.” She threw her hands up just in time to save her face from a rogue catapult.

He was constantly on alert for her well-being—and she understood why—but it had been years since the break-in. They had moved on; they had moved far. Even so, she hadn’t spent a night alone since. If Dan or the boys weren’t here, he always arranged for Lynette or Hayley to keep her company.  

“I worry about you…being alone.” His brows furrowed as an unwelcome memory crossed his eyes.

“I know honey, but I’ll really be okay. It’s only a couple of days. I have lots to keep me busy.” She couldn't keep them shackled to her side forever.

She knew he wasn’t really sold, but a glob of mush found its mark on his shiny bald head and he finally turned his attention to the boys with a roar.

The next day they were on the road, and Carol had strict instructions to check in at least twice a day, eat at all the right times, take her pills, and lock the doors. She wrapped her knit cardigan tighter against the cutting chill and stepped back inside, snapping the deadbolt into defense. She frowned up at the vaulted cedar ceilings that usually amplified the cacophony of her busy family. The sudden hush seemed to echo in their lofty arches, and the moonless night pressed its palms against the windows. She flicked on every light in the house.

It had taken Carol a long time to acclimate to the unique nuances of rural nights, even with her family glued to her side. They had purchased the acreage four years ago in September, just as frosty nightfall begins its annual theft of time from the autumn sun. It was a solid bungalow on a small splat of three acres, two hours from the city and twenty minutes from the nearest hub of retired farmers, hockey tournaments, and churches. Far from the glow and glare of the city, she discovered a startling darkness that yielded only to the moon accompanied by a disquieting silence that broke only with the keen of unseen coyotes, the call of a distant train, the creak of a rusty windmill.

But the privileges of country living soon wooed her heart. It was an oasis of quiet freedom. Dense bush surrounded the property, hiding the house from view of the passing gravel road. The windows at the back looked proudly down a gently sloping yard—fire pit, swing set, garden—all the way to a large slough that they kayaked in the summer and skated in the winter.

The boys had unlimited space to run and play, significantly cutting down their screen time. They enjoyed the closeness with nature—geese making the pond their summer home, deer dwelling in the trees, even the occasional moose wandering through on its way to the bogs. It was secluded and private, free from intruding traffic and complaining neighbors, the nearest of which was a speck on the horizon, three sections over. On clear nights, the skies were unlike any she had ever seen, hues of indigo and violet and black and navy sparkling with the life and death of a billion stars. It was everything their family needed; she was lighter, happier, and more present.

In the kitchen, Carol pulled out a stemless glass and a bottle of her favorite Pinot Noir onto the counter, cringing at the screech of glass on granite. She savored her first sip and turned on some music to dull the dagger of sudden solitude.

With the help of Kim Crawford’s grapes and Chrissy Teigan’s cookbook, Carol’s unease dissipated and she relaxed into benign bliss, buzzing over the stove, babysitting a stir-fry of ingredients against which her family would have revolted, face tingling with wine-induced warmth. After a peaceful dinner she wandered through the empty house, glass in one hand, phone in the other. How are the roads?

A little windy but not too bad.

Okay good—text me when you get there. Stay safe and have fun—xx. 

She left her phone on the coffee table and went to tackle the dishes.

Outside, the wind whipped up an angry wail; the dancing flakes gave way to piercing pins; the temperature snapped from a few to twenty below. Carol took no notice and spent the evening enjoying one of her much neglected books.

She was pouring another full glass of wine to enjoy in a long hot bubble bath when an urgent THUMP THUMP THUMP reverberated through the house and rattled her bones. Pinot splattered and glass smashed against the tile kitchen floor. Her cheeks went cold; her heart fled its natural rhythm; her stomach threatened to purge the stir-fry. Someone was at the door. She hadn’t noticed any headlights announce an arrival.

Carol stood frozen and barefoot in a sea of glittering crystal teeth and trauma. Dan and the boys were hours away, and they would never knock. It didn’t seem likely that any of her friends from town would venture out in this weather. Maybe a neighbor’s car broke down and they needed help. Maybe not.

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

She collapsed to her hands and knees behind the island and reached up to pat around until she found the knife block. Clutching the steel handle of a chef’s knife, she shuffled out on all fours, glass biting her palms, past the dining table, around the basement stairs, and into the hallway adjacent to the living room. She could see her phone right where she’d left it, sitting helplessly on the coffee table in full view of the blind-free bay window. Even if she slithered in on her belly, she’d be seen.

It was no secret that rural crime was on the rise. It was the talk of the town, grizzled old men hunching over their Tim Horton’s coffees every morning muttering about dark times, the lack of government support, whose truck had been stolen, and whose house had been stripped while everyone was asleep in their beds. She tried to block it out, even as the rumors scratched at a lingering ulcer of anxiety—they had moved away from real crime. In four years, no one suspicious had ever come sniffing around their yard. But now the vicious whim of winter lay siege against the walls, heavy boots clomped up and down the front porch, and Dan had insisted on moving the pistol under her pillow into the gun safe. In the barn. On the other side of the yard.

She sat with her back against the wall, knees drawn up to her chest, and glimpsed her wide blue eye in the shaking face of the blade in her grasp. Had they been watching the house from the cover of cloud and shadow, seen her family leave, observed her eat dinner, picked their moment…?

THUMP THUMP THUMP. It escalated this time—less of an urgent knocking and more of an angry battering. They assaulted the doorknob. Carol clenched her eyes shut and clamped her hands over her ears.

The door stopped rattling.

The heavy footfalls fell mute.

The wind howled its banshee ballad. 

Carol held her breath, willing the unwanted visitors away.

Seconds. Minutes. Almost enough to ease the tiniest bit of tension in her shoulders.

She leaned slightly to the left and twisted around the corner, but before she had a chance to lay eyes on it, the door blasted open with a gust of wrathful wind.

Carol yelped and whipped back around, stumbling to her feet. She fumbled the knife, slipping and slashing her palm. Violent red smeared the grey wall where she clawed her way upright and fled to the master bedroom at the farthest end of the hall.

The booze-laced slur of male voices accompanied winter’s tempest into the house.

“Heya, pretty lady!” One of them called with a leering lilt.

She closed the bedroom door only halfway, and dashed with a desperate scramble across the bed to the patio doors that opened onto the back deck.

“Come out, come out, wherever y’ar!” They laughed, and she shuddered at the re-run she was trapped in and the horrible standard script of home invaders.  

The door was frozen and resisted Carol’s quaking tugs, until adrenaline came to the rescue and tore the sliding glass like Velcro from the frosty frame. The icy wind nearly slammed her back inside, but she fought and flung her way out, sliding on the slick wooden deck and tumbling down to the lawn now blanketed in arching drifts of blowing snow.

“Hey lady!” She felt them follow her out, their massive bulks indistinguishable from the shadows haunting the darkness between windows.

She turned and ran. Corralled by the unnavigable thickets of bush surrounding the yard, she was herded down to the edge of the slough. Tear froze on her cheeks; snot clotted in her nostrils, cries choked in her throat. In mere moments, the arctic cold stiffened her joints and slowed her bleeding to a sluggish glug. Snow gnawed at her bare feet. Flying crystals needled her face.

At the end of the lawn, she hesitated, hunched and heaving, shivering and shaking, knowing without looking of their determined pursuit. There was only one way forward. She cradled the boys’ faces in her mind and called on their voices for courage.

At Dan’s request, Lynnette knocked on the firmly bolted door a final time. She peered inside and saw Carol’s phone lying next to a wrinkled paperback. On the other side, she could see the bathroom window was fogged with steam. Concluding her friend was safe in the shower or bath, she made a mental note to check in the next day.

On the other side of the empty house, warm windows gazed sadly down as Carol reached out with unfeeling white toes and slid tentatively onto the infant ice. It bobbed uncertainly under her weight, crackling and spider-webbing with every cautious step into the infinite darkness ahead.