Sophie Littlefield - House of Glass

“Oh, yes, it is almost dinnertime, isn’t it?” Jen said, faking surprise. “But I’m just having a nice time down here with you guys. Let’s play for a while longer, okay?”

“Tell Livvy,” Teddy said.

“Tell her what?”

“That it’s a game because she was scared.” Before Jen could react, he reached into the pile of toys and pulled out a chubby little sheep. “I found him!”

Jen helped him find the other sheep, the lambs, the pieces of fence and the plastic bushes. Livvy joined them on the rug, helping Teddy assemble the imaginary pen. Jen looked at the windows and saw that it had grown pitch-dark outside. What did that make it, seven? The lights worked down here, thank God, even if it was just a few naked bulbs in the ceiling.

Ted was sorting through the shelves, pulling bottles of water from the emergency supplies. Jen went to help him.

“You got Teddy calmed down,” Ted said quietly.

“How’s Livvy?”

“Okay, I think. I think I convinced her that they weren’t here to hurt anyone.”

“I just wish I knew if they were coming back. I mean, maybe they just took what they wanted and left already.”

“No, they would have had to bring a car to load it all, and gone through the garage, unless they were really stupid. We would have heard the garage door. Besides, I hear them moving around up there.”

“Oh.” Jen tried to keep the disappointment from her voice. Why were they still in her home? “Maybe they’re just waiting until everyone’s in for the night, so they don’t call attention to themselves.”

“Maybe. Though pulling up a car late at night has its own risks, if someone sees them. They’d be more likely to notice a strange car at three in the morning.”

“Who’s up at three in the morning?” Jen demanded, and then wished she hadn’t, because the look Ted gave her conveyed what they both knew: that she was up at that hour as often as not. Lately, sleeping through the night had been nearly impossible for her; her doctor said it might be from perimenopause.

“I think we need to prepare for the possibility that we might be stuck here overnight,” Ted said.

“Oh, my God—there’s no way. They can’t just leave us down here—”

Ted reached for her, gently pushing the hair from her eyes, tilting up her face to look at him. “I know, sweetheart, I know.” His voice was heavy with emotion. “But maybe the kids can get some rest, if we just try to make it seem as normal as possible.”

“There’s nothing normal about this!” Jen felt the panic nipping at her. She wasn’t sure she could keep acting like nothing was wrong—pretending even for a few minutes with Teddy had exhausted her.

“We can do this,” Ted said as though sensing what she was feeling. “Together. We’ll stay busy and keep our minds off it, okay? And you’re right—they could leave at any time. And meanwhile we can move stuff around to make it comfortable down here for the kids. We can set it up kind of like it used to be upstairs.”

Jen looked around her at the crowded shelves, the furniture stacked up near the wall. When they’d bought the new living room furniture a couple years ago, Ted decided to sell the old stuff on Craigslist and dragged it all down to the basement, where it sat gathering dust. It had been one of their first arguments after he was laid off: Jen asked if he couldn’t finally get rid of all that junk now that he had time on his hands.

“Okay,” she whispered, because she couldn’t think of anything better to do, especially since Livvy and Teddy were occupied with the play set, and she didn’t want to interrupt and risk upsetting them.

First they took down the old dining room chairs, fussy dark walnut things with uncomfortable thin red damask cushions, and lined them up along the basement wall. The love seat was heavy and narrowly missed crushing Jen’s toe as it slid to the floor. They lifted the old coffee table down and set it next to the kids on the carpet.

Ted searched the shelves for the nonperishable food he thought he’d stored during his emergency preparedness phase, and Jen dug out the old quilts her grandmother had made. She found them packed in a box on a high shelf, and laid them out on the sofa. Livvy looked up from the floor.

“We’re going to sleep down here?” she asked, and then before Jen could answer, “What’s Daddy doing?”

Jen followed her gaze. Ted was at the top of the stairs with a flashlight and a screwdriver. Little light carried up the stairs, and his face was shadowed as he poked around at the knob.

Fear constricted Jen’s throat. If Ted managed to get the door open, he could get himself shot—or even worse, he might enrage the men upstairs, and invite their wrath on all of them. Before she could react, the door crashed open, sending Ted scrambling. The flashlight and screwdriver clattered down the wooden steps, and Ted cursed, falling a few steps until he was able to right himself by grabbing the handrail.

The door banged against the wall and swung back. A man stood in the door frame, but Jen couldn’t tell if it was Dan or Ryan. Something glinted dully, but Jen didn’t realize it was a gun until it had gone off, the report echoing dully. The man disappeared back into the hall, slamming the door shut behind him.

Jen raced up the steps. She heard Livvy screaming and the sound of the key turning on the other side of the door. Ted was holding his shin, muttering. Blood trickled down his forearm.

“What happened? Are you hurt?” Jen heard the panic in her own voice and knew the kids could hear it, too. She forced herself to stay calm.

“I’m fine.”

“But the gun—he shot—”

“Didn’t hit me. This is just from running into the handrail. I think he was just aiming for the wall.” Ted grimaced, wiping at the blood with the tail of his shirt. In the poor light Jen couldn’t see how bad it was. “Trying to make a point, I guess.”

“Daddy, come down here!” Livvy wailed frantically, and behind her, Teddy started to cry.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Ted said, getting up painfully and holding on to the handrail. Jen did her best to help him down the steps, as he favored his bruised hip. In the light she could see that the gash on his forearm wasn’t bad.

Livvy seized her father’s good arm. “Daddy, you can’t go up there! They could have killed you!”

“No, that was just...laying out the rules,” Ted said, managing a tight smile. “They never meant to hurt me. They’re not killers.”

“How do you know that?” Livvy demanded as Jen went to Teddy, lifting him into her arms.

“They’re just not.” Jen knew Ted was trying to reassure Livvy, to convince her they were safe. But even if the men fired this time as a warning, how could he be sure that next time they wouldn’t shoot to kill? “I don’t know what they want, but if they were going to hurt us they would have done it already. They’re probably just trying to figure out what’s worth taking.”

Teddy whimpered against Jen’s neck, and she rocked him, trying to calm him, feeling guilty about the lie she’d told him.

“That was scary, wasn’t it?” she asked quietly. “I don’t think I like this game anymore, do you?”

Teddy shook his head against her neck. She felt the dampness of his tears against her skin. Looking around the room for something to distract him with, she had an idea.

“Let’s do the wash, okay?” she said. “Do you want to help?”

Teddy stopped snuffling and allowed her to put him down. “Laundry baseball,” he said, running for the basket of soiled towels.

Laundry baseball was a game Jen had invented to keep Teddy occupied. She tossed items from the dirty laundry pile to him, and he batted them with a hollow plastic bat, sorting them into dark and light piles. She always had to sort them again afterward, but the sound of his laughter more than made up for the extra effort.