The Truth About Mallory Bain by Clare Hexom Page B

burglar’s ladder wasn’t leaning against the house. Nothing was near the window. No branches, no trees. Satisfied nothing was out there, I lowered and secured the storm and inside windows.
    My son was safe. Our bizarre dreams were because we’d gone through many changes. Mom’s house was our third home in lessthan a year. Major life changes can affect dreams, which is why I supposed the man at the window might have been a faceless Chad appearing in Caleb’s dream.
    I rechecked my own window before crawling back into bed. I set the book on the nightstand and fell asleep soon after but did not sleep well. I tossed and turned, aware my shoulder ached but too asleep to awaken for a pain killer.
    Hours into the night there was a knock at my door. Too paralyzed to move, I watched the door swing open. The silhouetted man stood in my doorway again. The brightness shone behind him and spotlighted the rolled newspaper prominently tucked beneath his arm. Again, he spoke in a gush of burble. I sensed he was prompting me to study the wall sconce mounted in the hallway behind him.
    He might have been saying, “See the light fixture relative to the top of my head.”
    Tall.
    I gauged the breadth of his shoulders inside the doorframe.
    Broad.
    Although my body remained immobile and I knew I was dreaming, my head nodded acknowledgement. The man turned into the hallway and the door closed. I searched the darkness, hoping for his return. I awoke the next morning with a burning curiosity to know his identity and purpose of his visits. I hoped Ben’s spirit had come back.

C HAPTER
S EVEN
    I traipsed around outside while Mom fixed breakfast. I searched the house’s perimeter for signs of attempted break-ins, all the while bucking the gusting wind and soaking my clothes in the morning downpour.
    A variety of evergreens grow beside the house from beneath landscape rock. Their tallest tops peak a good distance from the bottom edge of the upstairs window ledges. Shorter shrubs grow too low to the ground to knock against even the downstairs glass. Tall columnar arborvitae flank the corners but grow far away from any window. As I had seen last night, no branches touched the house to support Caleb’s claim he heard knocking.
    It was petty of me to keep blaming Chad for every strange thing we experienced or imagined we had experienced, but he was fair game. Though my nightly visitor was tall like Chad, his shoulders were broader. Chad rarely read anything not work-related, nor did he ever carry a newspaper rolled under his arm. Neither had Ben.
    I was determined to believe that Judith was mistaken about a spirit’s presence. Maybe imagined vaporous images, lurking in the shadows of the trees, gave her the drama she craved. Stress caused by Chad was the obvious cause of Caleb’s window knocking and my dreams. We needed calm, not excitement.
    After breakfast, Mom and I took Caleb to the mall to buy winter socks and long underwear for sledding. She reminded me snow might fall sooner than we figured.
    I had no social life, though Dana had promised to fix that situation soon, which gave Mom reason to push me into dipping intomy emergency fund to buy a few new clothes and pair of heels besides a new bag, all of which cost more than I had cared to spend. My self-confidence needed the boost but I refused to let her pay. Since she suggested manicures, she covered the bill.
    Later that Saturday afternoon, Caleb played downstairs in the family room. He worked hard artfully stacking his blocks to show Ronnie how his “invincible dinosaurs” toppled buildings.
    â€œIt’s almost suppertime,” I leaned over the banister and called down to him.
    Mom carried the stool over to the island sink for him to stand on while he washed his hands. She set the liquid soap by the knife rack because he’d drained the jar the day before making a “tubble of bubbles” for Edgar’s bath.
    I lifted the