LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER SIX

       The Neighbor

       CLARA

      I stopped sleeping after Krissy left. The house had gone quiet ever since she moved to Texas with her husband, Tim. Now twenty, she was no longer my little girl, but a woman on her own with her own family to take care of and worry about.

      It had been two years since she left, but still, sometimes I thought I could hear her—the tap tap tap of her typing. That girl was always typing, either writing a story or doing research for some cause she wanted to fight for. And sometimes I heard the younger versions of her—Krissy with her Hot Wheels, the metal wheels scraping on the hardwood floors and running up the sides of the walls. It used to aggravate me to no end. I’d be reading a book or cooking supper, and here she’d come, buzzing down the hall with those obnoxious cars.

      And Annie, too. Sometimes I still heard Annie. Unlike Krissy, Annie never aged—her sounds were always that of a three-year-old. Sucking on her bottle that I never got the chance to break her from. Giggling. Her laughter, a cute little snort. I’d open the bathroom door, expecting to find Annie in there taking a bubble bath, running little rubber duckies around the porcelain walls of the tub…

      There were pieces of them all over the farm, like pieces of old ghosts. I couldn’t sleep in my own bed because Andy would be there waiting. I could feel the pressure of his weight, lying on his side of the bed…

      Lately, I’d taken to leaving the TV on. Twenty-four hours a day someone was talking—Ellen DeGeneres, Dr. Phil, Judge Judy…But tonight, I couldn’t bear to listen. There was something about listening to other people’s lives that I could no longer stand. It felt stupid, really, living vicariously through other people. Meanwhile, I was wasting away, turning into a ghost myself, here on the farm.

      It was late, nearly three in the morning, and nothing good was ever on at this time. A pale sliver of light poked through the curtains and there was a tightening in my throat. I hadn’t smoked in hours, but still, my mouth and throat felt dry.

      Quietly, I tiptoed closer to the dining room window, peeking through the small gap in the curtains. Praying my new tenant wouldn’t catch me spying on her again.

      But there wasn’t much to see, just a slippery shadow moving around behind the curtains in her bedroom window.

      News of Nova’s missing daughter hadn’t made the nightly news. I’d seen her wandering the property in the middle of the day, but she hadn’t been out there long. I was so worried she’d come to my door and knock, but she never did. She’d ran around, frantic-like, then ran back inside.

      Suddenly, the back-porch light of the cabin popped on and off. Then on again. From across the field, I watched my tenant emerge through the back-screen door. She was bent at the waist, dragging something over the threshold and then, she pulled a large object across the ground.

      In the dark, it looked like a long, black bag.

      I couldn’t see her face as she tugged and pulled, but her hair whipped around wildly in the wind until eventually, she disappeared through the trees at the back of the property.