The Choice ( a serial work of fiction) Part 14

I do not remember just when I settled down enough to sleep. It was more like a fade to black moment in the movies when the final curtain is drawn just before the credits roll. Sometime, during the early morning, I had taken myself upstairs and gone to sleep fully dressed on white chenille spread which I later coccooned around my body. It was quite bright when my eyes opened. I looked at the clockradio next to my bed-11am. Hopefully there was still time to make appointments to see houses today .

Coming down the stairs, I noticed that the front door was open-held only by the chain lock at the top. Had I done this in my sleep? It seemed unlikely that Andrew had not shut the door properly for even in his previous life, he had always been a stickler for locked doors. Unhooking the chain, I looked for signs of forces entry. There were no marks. Nothing with which I could claim such an attempt. Shutting the door, I noticed that the framing of the door had pulled away from the wall , nearest the lock but again there were no marks . I shut the front door , locking it tightly. Then I searched the house for a hammer. I was soon rewarded by the find of a small rubber mallet with which I pounded the framing back into place , reminding myself that this was , perhaps noteworthy to my uncle when he came by that evening. I returned the mallet to the bottom drawer of the secretary where it had been found, shutting the drawer behind me as I went.

Nothing prepared me for the sight of the back yard which seized my attention as I filled the carafe with water to make coffee. We had come in through the front door the prior night. Out back the two car garage which was independent of the main house, had both doors fully opened. The contents of the garage were neatly stacked in small piles outside of the doors. It appeared that whoever had done this, had plenty of time and knew what was wanted. As it seemed unlikely to me that the neighbors would not have noticed a stranger, perhaps they were familiar. Or perhaps they had arrived between the time that my uncle and I had left for Duncan's but before we had returned. I could call the police, I supposed about that but I did not even know who the owners were . Another mystery that needed to wait till the evening.
The coffee dripped then gave me an insolent raspberry as it finished.

I sat with the coffee in front of me, dutifully dialing the numbers. People were still at work- so I got mostly voice mail. I put a small amount of margarine into the fry pan for a grilled cheese sandwich. The phone bleated from the table. It was an older woman on the other end. Her son did have a house for rent about four blocks from where I sat. We could see it around sseven that evening. I knew the location, it was about a block from the library so was on the busline. I dutifully noted the number that was calling , her name and the address. I had burned one side of the grilled cheese but it was not lost. Then I ran up the stairs and took a hot shower, releasing the kinks from my body and the mystery from my mind.

Returning down stairs, I placed my book on the coffee table , and went back into the kitchen for a second cup of coffee. Looking out of the window, the piles were gone and the garage doors closed as they had been 24 hours ago. I unlocked the back door and proceeded cautiously down the cement stairs, watching for someone coming quickly inside of my line of vision . No one in the yard. I walked slowly around the house. No one. Okay , Rae, I decided You are nuts. Maybe none of it happened...I scooted for the backdoor and locked it once more. I wondered if Duncan would think me an incredible sissy baby if I called. I decided to chance it.