Cold in July

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That night, Ann heard the noise first.

I was asleep. I hadn’t slept well in a while due to some problems at work, and the fact that our four-year-old son, Jordan, had been sick the previous two nights, coughing, vomiting, getting us up at all hours. But tonight he was sleeping soundly and I was out cold.

I came awake with Ann’s elbow in my rib and her whisper, “Did you hear that?” I hadn’t, but the tone of her voice assured me she had certainly heard something, and it wasn’t just a night bird calling or a dog working the trash cans out back; Ann wasn’t the frighty type, and she had incredible hearing, perhaps to compensate for her bad eyesight.

Rolling onto my back, I listened. A moment later I heard a noise. It was the glass door at the back of the house leading into the living room; it was cautiously being slid back. Most likely, what Ann had heard originally was the lock being jimmied. I thought about Jordan asleep in the room across the hall and gooseflesh rolled across me in a cold tide that ebbed at the top of my skull.

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