This memory problem has to be caused by more than stress, but I’m extremely wary of doctors. Both my parents’ deaths were caused by medical misdiagnosis. My mother’s when her doctor misdiagnosed her lung cancer symptoms as asthma, and my father’s when his doctor told him those chest pains he’d been having for the past twelve hours were nothing more than heartburn. The doctor prescribed antacids, when in fact the culprit was a heart attack. By the time Dad was admitted to the emergency room, it was too late.
And didn’t I read somewhere that most deadly infections people get are picked up inside hospitals?
“You need help,” I tell myself. “Stop rationalizing.”
But what would I even tell a doctor? “Hi, I’m Kayla! I’ve been hearing strange noises in my house, jars fly out of my kitchen cupboards on their own, my memory has more holes in it than a spaghetti strainer, I’ve got a new pen pal in prison, and I started an intense sexual affair three weeks after my husband died with a man who calls me his bunny rabbit!”
And let’s not forget the mysteriously reappearing buffalo nickel and the weird guy in the hat who spied on me from behind a tree and didn’t leave any footprints behind. In mud.
Psych ward, here I come.
Just breathe, Kayla. Just calm down and breathe.
Back at the house, I’m worried I might not have armed the alarm before I left, but it’s working as it should. I enter in my code to reset it, then stand in the foyer, listening.
For what, I don’t know.
The house is silent. When I enter the kitchen, I half expect to see more open drawers and cupboards, but nothing is amiss. I go from room to room, checking things out, until I’m satisfied there are no bogeymen hiding in closets or behind doors.
Only I’m not really satisfied. I’m paranoid, and I don’t know what to do about it.
So I do what any rational person would and pour myself a glass of wine.
Then I lock myself in my office and force myself to work, ignoring the disturbing fact that I’m drinking wine before noon and trying to pretend it’s normal behavior, when in reality, everybody knows denial about your drinking habits is a total red flag for alcohol use disorder.
“Oh, who cares?” I mutter, glaring at my drawing board. “I’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
After an hour, I give up. I drop my pen and rub my eyes, then go into the kitchen and refill my wine glass. Leaning against the counter, I hit the rewind button on the security app on my phone and settle in for some high-speed, backward video viewing.
I have a bad feeling that daily reviewing of the damn camera feed is about to become my new hobby.
It takes a while to get through it all from the time I left last night to when I returned this morning, but I find nothing unusual. Around dawn, two squirrels chased each other across the driveway. Just after midnight, a fat raccoon trundled out from the woodpile on the back porch and wandered away into the darkness. Other than that, everything was still.
It isn’t until I return to my office with another glass of wine that I see something interesting.
A little blond boy about five or six years old plays by himself on the back lawn. Dressed in a red jacket, matching pants, and yellow rain boots, he runs around grinning, chasing leaves and throwing them into the air. He falls at one point, screaming with laughter as he tumbles face first into the grass, then rolls over and waves at the sky.
Staring at him through the window, I wonder if a new family moved into the neighborhood. Or maybe someone’s grandchild is visiting? I can’t think of anyone nearby who has little kids.
But why would his mother think it was a good idea to take this kid to play on my back lawn? The house sits in the middle of two wooded acres. You have to make an effort to get here. Unless they walked down the beach? And where is his mother, anyway? There’s no adult in sight. Just this jolly little preschooler tearing up my grass.
Sighing, I set the wine glass on my desk and leave the room. I pass through the kitchen on the way to the laundry room, then go through the garage and out the side door to the backyard.
When I look around, however, the kid has disappeared.
I holler, “Hello? Anybody out here?”
My only answer is the lonely cry of a seagull circling far overhead.
Chilled because I forgot to put on a jacket, I walk all the way around the back of the house and look down toward the street. I see no one. The driveway is empty. I look back toward the beach, and it’s empty, too. So are the woods on either side of the house.
Irritated, I mutter, “Where’d you go, you little fucker?”