A beautiful neighborhood
My husband Jack, my son Elija,
my daughter Molly, and I had been living in this little grey townhouse for
years. It wasn’t spacious, but I still liked it a lot. It had two bedrooms and
a living room with exactly the space we needed, no more, no less. Jack worked a
lot, but I still hadn’t gotten a new job after having Molly, so I spent my days
at home with the kids. My days went by slowly and peacefully, and when you have
two kids two days are never the same.
It was a sunny day at the end
of June when I saw a small, red Volvo pull up in front of the house beside
ours. This house had been empty for
months, after the old Humming couple moved out. This part of town was not as
popular anymore, but it was quiet and peaceful so some people still liked it
here. I stood by the kitchen window and looked out at the car. A skinny, pale
woman with fuzzy dark hair, carefully stepped out of the car. She looked
nervous, but had a pretty face with big, brown eyes. She glanced around quickly
before opening the back door of the car and helping a small girl out of the
back seat. I had no idea if the house was sold, but the lady seemed to be
moving in. She carried a couple of cardboard boxes inside, but the little
family had no furniture to bring into the new house.
The rest of the day I didn’t
see any more of her, they seemed to stay inside. But the car was still standing
outside, and I told Jack about the nervous looking woman. He didn’t seem to
care much, but I had a strange feeling about her.
The next morning the kids were
up at 6 am and Jack got ready for work as always. After I had made everyone
breakfast, gotten the kids dressed, and cleaned the kitchen, I took the kids
out in the back yard to play. The sun was shining and I had a cup of coffee in
my hand. I had been sitting there for a while, just watching them play, when
the lady peeked out of her back door. She briefly smiled before she went back
in, picked up her little child and walked outside. Our back yards were only
separated by a small wooden fence, and she put the girl on a blanket and then walked
towards the fence. She leaned on it, and I could tell she wanted to say hi, so
I got up and walked the short distance to the fence from my garden chair.
“Hello”, she said gently. She
sounded surprisingly calm, despite the nervous look on her face. “Hi”, I
replied firmly, “did you just move in? The house has been empty for a while”.
“Yes, I needed a new place to stay, and this is a beautiful neighborhood”, she
replied simply. When I heard her smooth, calm voice, the knot in my stomach
started to loosen. We stood there talking for a bit, and she seemed like a
kind, sweet soul.
After we had been talking for
a few of minutes, she seemed to become less interested, and sometimes it would
take her a little while to reply. It almost seemed as if she froze for a little
bit, before she snapped out of it and focused again. And she wasn’t looking at
me all the time, sometimes her eyes wandered around behind me, then suddenly freezing,
looking at my back yard where Elija and Molly were playing. A cold feeling started to creep up my back
again, but I pushed it aside this time. This poor lady had done nothing to me,
and I had no reason to feel uncomfortable around her.
In the afternoon Jack called
and told me he had missed the bus, so I had to go and pick him up. I looked at
the kids playing peacefully and didn’t want to take them with me out again now,
because we just came back from the beach. I glanced over the fence and saw the
fuzzy-haired woman reading a book, sitting beside her sleeping child. She
looked up for a second and I carefully asked if it would be possible for her to
keep an eye on the kids while I drove out to get my husband. She smiled and
answered that it would be a pleasure. I thanked her and jogged back into our
house. As I was on my way out to get the car, Jack called me again and told me
he had hitched a ride with someone else, so I didn’t have to come after all. I
walked back into the house and out the back door. The lady was leaning over the
wooden fence, looking at Molly and Elija. I thanked her again, but said we
didn’t need her help.
A few days went by, and I
talked a little bit to her every day. She still had these strange moments where
she froze, but they didn’t come as often now. I found out that her name was
Greta, and we often talked together over the wooden fence in the back yard.
Then one early morning I woke
up to a faint banging sound. I thought someone had to be knocking on our front door,
but then it wasn’t quite loud enough. I got out of bed and walked down the
hall. I turned to walk down the stairs when Molly stopped me by pulling my
sleeve. “Mommy, what is that sound?” my little daughter asked. “Nothing, it’s
nothing”, I told her. “You should go back to sleep”. I walked Molly to her bed
and tucked the sheets around her.
I found my way to the stairs
and walked down to the front door. I was right; no one was knocking on our
door. But the sound was louder now, more like pounding. I opened the door and
peeked out. In front of Greta’s door I saw two policemen dressed in their
uniforms. A police car was parked outside, and the men were now pounding loudly
on my neighbor’s door. I didn’t see Greta come out. Eventually the cops kicked
the door open and made their way into the house.
I pulled my robe tightly
around me and held my breath for a couple of seconds, before I suddenly heard a
scream and glass breaking inside my neighbor’s house. I heard her little girl
crying and Greta’s usually soft voice scream brutally. She appeared in the
opening of the door, a policeman was pulling her, and she was fighting him with
all she had, but for no help. After them came the second policeman with the
little girl. The first cop pulled Greta away from her little child. I took a
deep breath before running outside.
“What are you doing?!” I
yelled at the two cops. “That’s her child and you can’t just take her away!
What on earth is happening here?” I demanded to know. “Mam, I need you to calm
down”, the second policeman said, holding the crying girl. Frustrated about
what they were doing (and maybe also a little because of the fact that he had called
me “mam”), I rose my voice. “What are you doing?!” I asked again. “I think you
need to come with us to the station”, the first cop said. “Can you drive? Can
you follow behind our car?” I was determined to find out what was happening, so
I got in my car and followed the police car they had shoved Greta into.
A couple of hours later I was
sitting in a police office. I had just gotten a long explanation about what the
police had about Greta Jones in their records. Greta was born with
schizophrenia, and she moved from her parents when she was 18. Some time in her
young twenties she had experienced a miscarriage, and she had never mentally
recovered. It had come to the point where her schizophrenia allowed her to do
sick things that no one else, even in deep grief, would do.
Greta was well known by the
police because she had repeatedly kidnapped small children and treated them
like her own. I would never have known. And it scared me to death to know how
close I had let her come to my own children. Greta had been doing this for many
years. However, she was never put in jail because she was not considered
mentally responsible for her own actions. She had several times been placed in
mental treatment homes, but for no good.
I drove home as fast as I
could. I didn’t want to be away from my family, I wanted to have them all close
to me, and safe. I hurried into the house and walked cautiously into the
kitchen. They were all there, all three of them, eating breakfast by the kitchen
table. I smiled carefully at them, and when Molly saw I was home again, she ran
up to hug me. “Mommy!” she cheered. I held her tight with her thin little voice
echoing in my head.
