Incubus

One

After everything that Luna had been through with her mother, she was thankful for monotony. The same routine every day and every weekend was her comfort. She didn't mind going to school, coming home, and taking her brother, Tyler, to soccer practice two or three times a week. She didn't mind hanging out with her friends at whichever home was designated for the weekend catching up on all the shows that they waited to watch together.

Her mother, Evelyn, came home from the real estate company she worked for and drank the same cup of chamomile tea to wind down her day. Luna would unlock the side door and the second she pushed it open the smell of the tea would drift into her nostrils. She would walk in fifteen minutes before her brother's bus would drop him off in front of the house. He would run inside and fill the house with whatever he had to share about his day. Then her stepfather, Benjamin, would come home about twenty minutes later, change into his sweats and Kiss the Cook apron and start cooking dinner.

While some people would find that boring, Luna thought it was wonderful and she never wanted it to change.

But it did.

Not in one fell swoop like a fatal car crash where you can physically hear the sounds of people's lives changing forever. It was gradual and slow and just maybe that was worse.

Evelyn was the first to notice that her husband was late coming home from work. When ten minutes passed and he hadn't walked through the door greeting everyone, she chalked it up to him being stuck at work.

When an hour went by, she called his phone only for it to go straight to voicemail. She swallowed a hard lump in her throat but waited for a little while longer.

After another hour went by and her son questioned where his father was, she dialed his office. A secretary who happened to have been stuck late, informed the worried wife that he'd left at his usual time.

She immediately hung up and called the police.

Something was wrong. She wasn't the same woman she was years ago but she knew trouble when it was stirring in her stomach.

So when the officers arrived and thought she was just being paranoid, she insisted otherwise, remembering to keep calm so her children wouldn't panic.

Luna however was terrified. Not only of something happening to the man that stepped into the role of her father at a young age but of her mother's grief.

She'd seen it take hold of her mother before when her father left. She sunk into a dark hole and stopped going to work, stopped taking care of her young daughter and stopped living in general. Luna recalled staring into her mother's face telling her about her drawing or upcoming event for school and seeing nothing but a shell.

After she was too deep in darkness, she would pull herself out of it with wine. She was thankful her mother never struck her or anything else when she was drinking but she hated how she basically didn't exist while her mother trudged around their home smashing pictures and crying.

It was terrifying and Luna was forced to retreat to her best friend Matt's house where his parents offered the best alternative home a little girl could ask for.

But while her mother sat up at the table, her cellphone and a bottle of wine keeping her company she was reminded that Matt's parents died when they were pre-teens. Her backup home wasn't the same as he lived in a house filled with male uncles and cousins.

So for forty-eight hours, the family waited for their final piece to come home. Evelyn waited for her husband, her saving grace to walk through the door so she could lay into him with her worst for making her worry. No one went to school or work, they just sat at home...waiting.

When the knock finally came, Luna flung the door open to find a solemn officer. A young beat cop who'd never delivered bad news to a family.

"Mom..." Luna whimpered to her mother who was already running to the door. Her eyes connected with the officers and she knew.

They didn't want to hear what happened but they had to in order to understand.

He went quickly, which they were thankful for. But it still hurt them to know that his last moments were alone as he tumbled down the concrete steps of the parking garage far away from his parked car. No one found him right away because they were stairs only used for maintenance on his office building.

"I'm sorry for your loss." the officer said as he stood to leave the family to grieve.

Luna walked him out and shut the door behind him, to be polite but also so she sank against the door to cry silently.

She knew it was coming, she knew her mother would disappear down the hole like Alice but instead of a land of wonder, she would be met with sadness and hopelessness.

So she allowed herself that painful cry, the one moment to let it out so she could continue to be strong and take care of her family. She was older now and had Tyler to think of.

He'd never known loss as she did and he was fortunate enough to have only seen the best of their mother but now she was tasked with shielding him from the worst.

So she knew she had to let it go at that moment so she could give him her undivided attention.

She shut her eyes tight and let the tears flow. She pretended that they were her pain and grief as they landed on the floor with a quiet splash to dry and fade away.

When it was time to pick herself up and help her brother, she opened her eyes and was perplexed at the drops of blood mixed in with the salty tears.

Her hand went to her face feeling for a cut of some sort only to find that it was coming from her nose. It had never happened before but she could hear footsteps in the hallway. The soft fabric of her lavender sweatshirt soaked the blood as she dabbed at her nose before Tyler appeared in front of her.

He looked like he had something to say but when he opened his mouth cries poured from his young throat.

She stood up to take her brother in her arms being careful to hide the bright red stain on her shirt.