CH 20
The next morning we are woken up by Chris’s phone going off for the third time in a row. Its on silent but you can still hear it. Groaning Chris reaches over to his night stand and answers.
“Hello?…..Are you serious?” He runs a hand down his face “I’ll be there in 30 to 45 minutes, ok I’ll see you then.”
Rolling onto his side to face me he stretches his arms out and pulls me into him with a sigh. “I have to go out to the west construction site, they delivered the wrong tile again.”
“Can’t find good work these days…” I mumble into his chest sarcastically. He chuckles and hugs me tighter running his hands up and down my back, pressing my breast into his chest. “I don’t want to get up its so warm in here with you.” He says huskily. But a few minutes later that’s exactly what he does, he quickly gets dressed and kisses me and the baby goodbye. It’s Monday and a school day so I have to get the boys off to school in a bit. I continue to lay in bed for a few minutes after Chris leaves. Vivienne stirs in her basinet beside the bed and I pick her up with a smile.
“Good morning sweet girl” I say kissing the top of her head. I take her into her room to change her, and we stand looking out her window at the early morning when we finish. The flowers Chris planted for me are starting to bloom, the first hints of pinks oranges and white peeking through the greenery. Eric still hasn’t met her yet, part of me is sad about that and the other part of fine with it. Chris is proving to be an amazing father figure already. While we aren’t anywhere close to marriage, I’m still married to Eric, I’m ok letting him fill that roll for the time being. I hope it’s something he’s truly thinking about long term because I’m starting too and I know the boys are happy to have him here.
A little while later we are all in the car line at school gearing up for drop off. Connor is fussing over Vivienne in her carseat and Noah is chattering away about a new Pokemon charter he was just introduced to. As we get closer to the front both boys start putting their backpacks on as I pull up to the curb.
“I love you both! Be good!” I say smiling to them as they get out of the car. “Bye mommy!” Noah waves back at me. “Love you too mom bye.” Connor says as he closes the door. I watch him take his little brothers hand and walk him into the school building. He amazes me more and more everyday with how grown up he seems at times. Suddenly I’m hit with the strangest feeling that I’m being watched. I look around as the hair on the back of my neck literally stands on end.
HONK HONK
Im startled but realize I’m holding the line up looking around. I feel on edge as I pull out of the school, trying to shake the feeling off I continue my morning stopping by the gas station first then I run into Target. I need to exchange an outfit I picked up for the baby that is too small now. My little bean is growing strong and steady. While at the store something or someone familiar catches my eye but when turn the person has just turned into the next aisle. I hurriedly push my cart to the end and turn looking for who it might be but no one is there. I decide to just leave with what I have. I’ve been feeling uneasy since this morning and now I just want to get home. I sing songs to myself and Vivienne trying to distract me from this feeling of being watched. Pulling into our driveway I’m relieved to see Andre out front. They haven’t accompanied me to school drop off before but I may ask them to if I still feel this way tomorrow. I wave at him as I get the car seat out and make my way inside.
Just as I’m getting settled on the couch with her to feed her my phone starts ringing. Seeing its Chris makes me smile.
“Hey baby” I answer.
“Hey how are my favorite girls doing?” He asks and I can hear him smiling through the phone.
“We’re good she’s just tucking into a boob” I laugh as I share what we are doing. “Well I can’t say I’m not jealous” he replies. I enjoy the lightheartedness of our relationship so much, its so fun and easy with him.
“I did have a little bit of a weird morning” I share with him. I continue to tell him about everything I felt this morning and how I rushed home from the store. Part of me thinks it could be postpartum anxiety, even with all the crap going on with my family there may be a perfectly good reason I feel this way.
“Is Andre there?” He asks me.
“Yes he’s out front”
“If anything else happens I want you to tell him. Maybe have him check the house just to pout your mind at ease ok? I’m going to leave as soon as I can.” He drops his voice so he’s a little quieter and adds, “I may have to fire the tile guy after this, this is a huge mess.”
“Ok I will I promise. I love you.” I say.
“Love you too babe.”
After she finishes eating I rest her against my shoulder and give her a little bounce to help her burp. We head upstairs to lay her down for her morning nap. Closing her curtains to darken her room, I tucked her pink blanket around he legs and waist and stroked her soft head until she closed her eyes again. I grabbed the baby monitor and headed back downstairs. I spent a few minutes in the kitchen cleaning up from this morning and getting the dishwasher going. I made a cup of decaf coffee and headed to my laptop to check some emails. Kate had gotten me in touch with her coffee shop friend and we were just starting to exchange ideas and see if I could come up with something she would be interested in. As I read through her notes I thought I heard a bump upstairs. Looking up confused I rushed up to Vivienne’s room thinking maybe she fell out of her crib, checking the monitor in my hand to make sure it was on. Entering her room I immediately go to her crib and to my relief she’s fine, still sleeping soundly. I test the monitor again and it seems to be working fine. “It must just be new house noises I’m still getting used to.” I tell myself to calm down. Remembering what Chris said about telling Andre if anything else bothered me, I pull out my phone and send a text asking him to come inside. I don’t even feel comfortable leaving her alone in the house to walk out front I’m so on edge today.
“So what exactly is going on?” He asks me as we stand in my kitchen.
“All morning since I dropped off the boys at school I’ve felt like someone was watching me, nothing really happened so far except for a weird noise I heard upstairs but when I looked I didn’t see anything.” I finished and he continued to stare at me as if waiting for me to continue.
“I sound crazy don’t I?” I ask dejectedly.
“You don’t sound crazy, there’s nothing wrong with double checking even if it’s just based on a feeling.” He tells me “I’m going to go walk around the house and check the property ok?”
“Ok thank you” I say feeling a little relived. He heads outside then and he’s gone for about 15 minutes, I can see him through the windows walking the yard and then checking all the windows on the first floor and all around the garage. Just as he slides the back door open to come back in I think I hear a bump on the baby monitor. Unsure if the noise was truly upstairs or in the kitchen with us I hold up my hand to signal quiet and we both listened for a moment. Then we both heard it. A heavy thump, not on the baby monitor, upstairs right above our heads. Vivienne! I make to run up stairs but he beats me there and heads up ahead of me and enters her room with his gun drawn.
“She’s not here!” I scream as my eyes land on her empty crib. “Oh my God! Vivienne!” I run to her window but theres no way down from here, a person would have to jump from the second story with a newborn. There’s no way whoever it was went out her window. But I was in the house the whole time and we came as soon as we heard the second noise, nobody had time to get down stairs and out the front door without being seen. I turn to Andre frantic and he’s already calling in for backup.
“I don’t understand! I was inside the entire time!” Im pacing her room screaming “How could someone get in and out of the house with me here!?” I’m hysterical now, I can barely see through my tears. “She must still be here somewhere!” I say dashing out of the room I run into the hall and look at the other doors.
“Larkin don’t touch anything without me!” Andre calls to me but I don’t listen, “Larkin stop!” I open my door and nothing, I run to Connors door and nothing is out of place, no baby. NO NO NO! I run to Noahs room and when I open the door I scream.
“Larkin!” Andre yells as he runs down the hall to me still talking into his radio giving out her info. I can hear sirens in the background but everything around me is starting to spin. The sirens are gone, replaced with a faint ringing in my ears and my vision is starting to go pinpoint. The last thing I see before I pass out completely is her pink blanket with little stars around the border hanging on the open window sill. The one I wrapped around her when I laid her in her bed a not long ago.