I pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway, expecting the smell of roasted chicken or the sweet, heavy scent of baby powder.
Instead, the air was cold and dead, carrying only the faint, sharp odor of ammonia and old floor wax.
“Mara?” I called out.
The word sounded thin, swallowed up instantly by the high ceiling of the hallway. No one answered.
I dropped my duffel bag onto the floor, the heavy canvas hitting the bare oak boards with a loud, hollow thud that echoed into the next room.
I walked to the entrance of the living room and stopped.
The blue sofa we had bought on installment before the deployment was gone. In its place were four dark, rectangular depressions in the beige carpet where the wooden legs had pressed down for three years.
The walls were completely bare. The small framed prints of the Ohio valley we had hung near the window were gone, leaving only the small finishing nails sticking out of the plaster like tiny iron thorns.
I walked into the dining room, my boots clicking loudly on the bare floor.
The table was gone. The four high-backed chairs where my mother used to sit during Sunday dinners were gone.
In the corner, a single white plastic coat hanger lay on its side, its hook pointed toward the empty kitchen.
I pushed the swinging door to the kitchen open, my hand leaving a clean smear in the dust that had settled on the wood.
The room was stripped. The counter was clear of the toaster, the cutting boards, and the green ceramic jar where Mara kept the sugar.
I walked to the refrigerator and pulled the handle. The small light inside flickered on, illuminating an empty wire shelf and a single jar of pickles with the lid screwed on crooked.
I turned the faucet on the sink, but only a dry hiss came out of the spout before the copper pipes behind the wall gave a sudden, loud rattle. The sound died down after a few seconds, leaving the kitchen quieter than before.
I turned around and looked at the wall calendar. It was still showing the page for August, the boxes blank except for a small circle around the sixteenth, which was the day I had been scheduled to leave the clinic.
There was no note on the counter. No folded yellow paper, no telephone messages, no keys left behind on the hook by the door.
I walked back into the hallway, my prosthetic leg dragging slightly against the edge of the linoleum as I hurried.
I walked over to the hallway thermostat and flicked the plastic cover open. The digital display was blank, meaning the battery had died or the furnace had been shut off entirely. The metal casing felt cold to the touch, like the rest of the house.
The door to the basement was shut, but when I turned the knob, it swung inward to reveal a black stairwell that smelled of damp concrete and old coal dust. I shut it quickly, my hand trembling slightly on the latch.
I walked to the small closet under the stairs where we kept the coats. When I pulled the door open, the metal hangers jingled against each other, completely empty.
My winter coat was not there. Mara’s heavy wool coat, the one with the black fur collar I had saved three weeks of pay to buy her for our first anniversary, was gone too.
I stood in the center of the hall, the silence of the house pressing against my ears like a physical weight.
The light from the streetlamp outside finally flickered on, casting long, yellow ribs of light through the bare front window and onto the floor.
I stood there for a long minute, listening to the wind brush against the bare branches of the oak tree outside the window.
Then I heard it.
It was a small, dry sound, coming from the ceiling directly above my head.
It was a high-pitched whimper, followed by a sharp, ragged breath that caught in a tiny throat.
I held my breath, my hand instantly going to the banister to steady myself as my good leg began to shake.
The cry came again, louder this time, joined by a second, softer wail that sounded thin and exhausted.
It was the babies.
They were upstairs in the nursery, crying in the dark.
I stared at the dark stairs as the sound of two babies crying drifted down.
I put my hand on the banister and lifted my left boot onto the first step. The wood groaned under the extra weight of the metal joint.
