The Children

by Ann Leary

  “You see them all the time on the Internet,” I said. “You know, they’re articles that are lists. Like ‘Fourteen Ways to Overcome Social Awkwardness’ or ‘The Top Ten Reasons Men Cheat.’”

  “How do you come up with them? Do you just make them up or what?” Laurel asked.

  “Certain themes attract readers. Once you get to know what they are, you basically come up with new lists that are related to popular themes. ‘Reasons Men Cheat’ and ‘Reasons Women Cheat’ are the highest-trending ones, always. I just search for articles from Web sites like Psychology Today, places like that, and make up lists. You have to cite studies. You can’t just make things up out of thin air. You write things like ‘A study in Amsterdam revealed that saying a person’s name when you meet them and when you say good-bye instills a sense of trust in the person.’ That would be for a listicle numbering ways to make a great impression on a job interview.”

  “I actually find myself reading these lists quite often,” said Spin.

  “Most people do,” I said. “And when you’re reading one list, you’ll see a column of similarly enticing or completely sensational lists on the side, and you’re likely to click on at least one of those. It’s all just content created to lure people to advertisements on the sites.”

  Laurel said, “I had no idea there was a name for that. Listicle! Perfect. So what listicles have you written, Charlotte?”

  “I couldn’t name them all. I write them every day; I’ve written hundreds, probably.”

  “Did you write any today?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, what were they?”

  “Today I wrote ‘Fourteen Ways to Overcome Social Awkwardness.’ I’m working on one called ‘Twenty-three Great Household Hacks,’ and your wasp spray as a home-protection device is a great one. Would you mind if I use it?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t invent it. Like I said, people use it a lot for that reason. Oh, I love those ‘life hacks’ lists. I know a few.”

  “You can sell them,” I said. “I can give you the name of the editor I send them to. They don’t pay much, but if you do enough of them, it’s worth it.”

  “I don’t have time, but I can give you some general life hacks. Here’s one,” Laurel said. “As long as you’re dressed reasonably well, you can check your luggage or shopping bags in any hotel and retrieve them later. Give the porter a few bucks. Free storage.”

  “That’s a good one,” Everett said.

  “There’s a lot you can do in hotels,” she went on. “The high-end hotels. Take an elevator up to any floor in the early morning, grab a newspaper off one of the doors—they’re usually in a little bag with the name of the hotel on it. Then you own the place. Tuck it under your arm and go to the pool. Visit the club floor, where they have buffets, help yourself. Go to the gym.”

  “I love these,” I said.

  Spin was laughing. “You sound like you have a little experience with this,” he said.

  “Of course I do,” said Laurel. “I couldn’t afford a gym membership when I was in college.”

  “These are great,” I said. “I’m gonna use them if you don’t want to.”

  “Go ahead. Let’s see, what else? Oh, you can only do this once, so make it worthwhile. When you’re going on a trip, have a trusted friend give you her credit card. Use it for all the hotels, restaurants—anything but plane tickets. When the trip is over, have the friend report it stolen. The friend has proof that she never left the area, so the credit card company reimburses her. You just got a free trip. Make sure you buy the friend who loaned you the card an expensive gift, though.”

  There was a moment of silence. Everett glanced at me and then at Spin.

  Laurel laughed. “Of course, I would never do that, but I have more. I’m always thinking of them. There’s a bunch you can do with gift cards. You can buy a Costco gift card online and then buy anything you want there without having to pay a membership fee. Most people don’t know that. You can do it at any of the wholesale clubs.”

  “Huh,” I said. “I had no idea.”

  “There’s no crime in it,” she said. “You’re still buying the stuff. Also—you should be writing these down, Charlotte—if you’re going on a trip, buy a new camera at any major electronics store. When you get back, download all the photos and videos to your computer, remove the memory card, and return the camera.”

  “That’s why I love her,” Spin said. He wrapped his arms around Laurel and was beaming with pride. “She’s an evil genius.”

  “Oh,” she continued, “when you get a parking ticket—I’ve done this many times; in fact, I’ve never paid for parking anyplace where they have those meter tickets. Just park anywhere you want. When you get a parking ticket, take a photo of a nearby car that does have the paid meter ticket on the dashboard. You have to get a close-up shot of the dashboard so that you get the date and time. Just mail it in with the ticket.”

  “Um, wow. Great ideas,” I said. “But I think they have to be legal for the sites I write for.”

  “Oh, that’s no fun,” Laurel said. “So I guess the hack to remove all traces of blood so that no forensics team will be able to find them—no good, huh?”

  I couldn’t help myself. “There isn’t a way to remove blood … is there?”

  “Quite a few ways, actually, but never use bleach. That’s where people go wrong. Soap, water, and meat tenderizer is probably your best bet.”

  We were all silent. Laurel laughed. “It’s research for my novel! I read articles about this stuff every day.”

  SEVEN

  I was pretty obsessed with Mr. Clean. I even went so far as to make a chart listing the homes he had stayed in, identifying the similarities. Some of the houses had alarm systems, but none was turned on. None of the houses had dogs. When he entered the houses, nobody was home. The first few break-ins were weekend places, but the last two before Mildred’s were occupied full-time. There was a couple, Sarah and Jim Cooper, and a family with three kids. The Higginses were hit, too. They live on Tinker Hill Road, so not technically on the lake, but nearby. Mr. Clean didn’t stay the night in these houses; he went in during the day, while everybody was out. He did the usual tidying up and moving things around, but no damage was done. No physical damage anyway.

  According to the Web, our Mr. Clean isn’t the only one who’s into this type of thing. It’s a form of voyeurism. Sometimes the intruders break into homes at night when the occupants are there. These people delight in their night-ops stealth. They’re very creepy. They don’t steal; they just like the thrill of being in the house while people are sleeping. The thrill of getting away with it, I guess. I get it. When I was a little girl, I used to love sneaking around this house and spying on Perry, my mother, and Whit. I especially loved to spy on our guests. And now I enjoy the fact that I have this alter blog persona that nobody in my life knows about. I have a secret. I am somebody important. I have the paychecks to prove it. The fact that nobody knows about it makes me feel even more important.

  Last summer, when Mr. Clean began his rampage, I did some scouring of online forums. It’s amazing how many are devoted to strange hobbies and obsessions. That’s how I found my friend Matt—on a Reddit forum. Matt’s from Australia and a bit like Mr. Clean. He likes to break into people’s homes when they aren’t there. He’s done it since he was a teenager; he’s middle-aged now. For Matt, the fun is “casing the joint.” (He loves old movies.) When he chooses a house, he watches it for days. He studies the behavior of the occupants, figuring out the best time to enter and the safest exit strategy, should somebody arrive home early.

  Matt called himself “Ghostify” on the forum. It was one of those AMA (ask me anything) forums. People post stuff like “I just had a face-lift. Ask me anything.” Or “I’m a gay man married to a woman. Ask me anything.”

  Ghostify posted: “I like to enter people’s homes when they’re not there, but I don’t steal. Ask me anything.” He was very popular.
Hundreds of people asked him about his methods and motives. Some people were very unkind, while others seemed to admire him.

  I privately messaged him last fall and we became friends. I learned a little about him. (Like his real name is Matt.) He related to a lot of what I told him about Mr. Clean. Matt was concerned about the cleaning part, though. He thought it indicated that our guy might be dangerous.

  Matt won’t tell me what he does for work, but he’s always at his computer, and he responded right away when I e-mailed about the return of Mr. Clean. He wanted details. He repeated his concerns about Mr. Clean’s behavior. He said the cleaning was meant to disturb people. It was a form of vandalism. It wasn’t enough just to go in and look around: Mr. Clean wanted people to feel afraid.

  “Don’t you want people to feel that way when you break into their homes?” I asked Matt.

  “Nobody ever knows I’ve broken in,” Matt said.

  “What’s the thrill, then, for you?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure I’d call it a thrill,” Matt replied. “But part of it is not leaving a trace. Being invisible. I feel good when I’m in a place where I don’t belong, but the most gratification comes from the fact that nobody will ever know I was there. Your cleaning bloke doesn’t like being under the radar. He wants people to feel violated. The fact that it’s a prosocial violation is even more disturbing. He’s a sick fuck.”

  “Jesus,” I replied. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  He wanted to know how long Mildred had been gone. He told me he never breaks into homes of the elderly and never the homes of people who are single. Too risky. Singles are too unpredictable. Seniors are often home, even if their cars are gone. Matt told me he always knocks on the front door to make sure that nobody’s home. If there’s no answer, he goes around and enters through the back. Most people have a door or window that is either unlocked or easy to unlock in the back.

  I told Matt that I didn’t think his knocking strategy is very smart. “I never answer the door if somebody knocks and I’m here alone,” I said.

  “Even in the day?” Matt asked me.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Why?” Matt asked.

  It took me a minute or two. I found it a hard question to answer, but finally I just typed: “I’m shy.”

  He then told me that he hadn’t taken into account the possibility of there being “social-phobics” in the homes he was scouting. He thanked me for the insight and asked me if I had ever tried counseling.

  Are you fucking kidding me? I wanted to type. I’m not a social-phobic. Counseling? This twisted pervert who breaks into people’s homes to sit on their sofas and probably shit in their toilets thinks I need counseling? I don’t have social-phobia. I lived in New York City for almost two years and attended crowded lectures every day at Columbia University. When I was only fourteen, I traveled around to bluegrass festivals all up and down the East Coast with Whit, Sally, and Spin—I’ve played banjo solos in front of thousands. But I didn’t respond. I still wanted to be able to consult with Matt about Mr. Clean. I could see how he could jump to conclusions—he knew almost nothing about me. He had probably never been in a relationship; I’d been involved with Everett for over ten years.

  Social-phobic? What the fuck?

  I wanted to type that, but I didn’t. I just logged off and went downstairs to get ready for bed.

  * * *

  I work, as I’ve said, in a little room in the attic. In the winter, I sleep up there, too, because it’s the warmest room in the house. But it’s too hot to sleep there in the summer. In the summer, I sleep in Aunt Nan’s old room on the second floor.

  Nan was Whit’s older sister. She and her husband, Bill, lived outside Philadelphia, but they would visit Lakeside every June, until they became too old to make the trip. Because Nan became so familiar with Sally and me, and because they saw the Whitman kids so rarely (they were often in Nantucket with their mother and stepfather), Nan would get confused in her later years and think that Sally and I were Whit’s children. At a certain point, everybody stopped trying to correct her.

  Uncle Bill could be a little grumpy, but Sally and I always loved Aunt Nan. We would peek into her bedroom and look at the voluminous cotton nightgowns that she would wash by hand in the bathroom sink and hang to dry by the window. She was on the large side, with pale, squishy thighs and a huge pillowy bosom. She wore necklaces made out of coral and sometimes jade. As the only female in Whit’s generation, Nan was in possession of most of the Whitman jewels—diamond necklaces, chokers, and bracelets that Whit referred to as “baubles.” But when she came to Lakeside, she’d bring her casual trinkets. Sally and I loved the coral necklaces, and one summer, Nan gave one to each of us as a gift.

  “I bought these for you girls in the Bahamas,” she said. “A nice lady sold them on the beach.”

  “Did they come from a reef? Did the lady swim down in the ocean and cut them from a reef?” I asked her.

  “Perhaps. I’m not exactly sure where she got the coral,” Nan said, but I was already imagining myself diving for coral in the Bahamas. That was one of the places where I would live when I grew up. When I was little, I always imagined that I would travel the world and live in exotic places as an adult, and one of those places would be the Bahamas. I would go into the coral business. Every day I would put a knife between my teeth and swim down to a brilliantly colored reef. There I’d dig at the reef with my knife, cutting loose bright pieces of coral, which I would later string together into necklaces and bracelets. I would sell them on the beach, where Sally and Spin and I would live, with pirates and fishermen as our neighbors, and seals so tame that they’d come flopping onto our porch and peer into our window. I remember trying to smell the ocean on my necklace, but it smelled like Aunt Nan’s suitcase and a perfume she wore called Joy.

  Aunt Nan loved to knit. She took up knitting years ago to help her quit smoking, and kept a basket of brightly colored yarn next to her bed. When she wasn’t in her room, Aunt Nan carried her knitting around with her, working the needles constantly. Sally and I loved to watch as sweaters, socks, mittens, and scarves took shape on her broad lap. After breakfast each morning, we would sit with her out on the porch and she would ask us what we did for fun, her needles clacking against each other.

  “What do you two have planned for tonight?” she would ask. Nan had no children and was wonderfully clueless about what kids did.

  “I don’t know. I guess just hang out,” we’d say.

  When we were young teenagers, she’d ask us, “No dates? Why not go out dancing?”

  “Where?”

  “Oh, we used to have wonderful dances at the club. Don’t you ever go and dance at the club?”

  “That’s just for old people.”

  “We used to have dances at the club all summer long,” Nan liked to recall, peering up at us over her eyeglasses as she spoke. She always sat on one of the rockers while Sally and I sat wedged together on the old porch swing. Sally was taller and pushed against the floor with her bare foot to make the swing move. Aunt Nan was the eldest in Whit’s family; she was at least sixty by the time Whit and Joan married. Her hair was white and cut into a sensible bob. Caked talcum powder was usually visible in the folds of her armpits. Her fingernails were short and neatly manicured and her thick index fingers were remarkably nimble as they tipped the tiny loops of yarn in and around the needle, in and around, then in and around again.

  “Didn’t you also dance at the Harwich Inn?” Sally would prompt, her elbow digging into my side.

  “Oh yes, we’d have great fun dancing at the inn.”

  The old Harwich Inn had burned down in the early 1970s, but it was once a very popular nightspot on the lake. There had been a restaurant and a dance hall at the inn once, and Sally and I loved to hear stories about it.

  “What kind of music did you listen to?” I would ask, biting my lip to keep from laughing.

  “Oh, we had wonderful music. A band would c
ome up from New York every summer. The bandleader’s name was Winslow Hobbs. Did you ever hear of him? Winslow was his first name. Isn’t that a wonderful name? It was the Winslow Hobbs Quartet.”

  Sally would start choking with suppressed giggles at this point, but she managed to squeak, “No, Auntie Nan, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about him.”

  “No? Oh, he was very popular. He was a—well, you know, he was a—black man.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, the Winslow Hobbs Quartet, they were very popular. I’m sure Whit remembers Mr. Hobbs—he ended up moving to this area after he retired. But when I was a girl, they were only here in the summer. The Conways put them up in the rooms behind the inn for the entire summer. Winslow Hobbs was quite a good-looking man … a very handsome fellow. He was a black fellow, you know, but he had been educated at a conservatory in Louisiana, believe it or not, so he knew classical tunes in addition to the popular songs they played here at night. He was a very talented man, Mr. Hobbs.”

  “And you say he was a dark-skinned man?” Sally would ask, ignoring my hysterical breathing.

  “Yes, dear, but I never notice that kind of thing. I don’t notice a person’s race. You could be red, white, green, or striped and I wouldn’t notice. I see what’s inside a person.”

  “I think Whit told me he learned the banjo from one of the guys in the band?” Sally or I would say, encouraging her to go on.

  “Yes, yes, he did. We would go over to the inn sometimes, in the afternoon when the men in the band would be relaxing out next to the lake. One of the gentlemen, the bass player, also played the banjo, and he’s the one who taught Whit. I would go there with Whit sometimes, though, of course, we never told Father.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, you know,” Nan would confide. Her white cheeks would turn pink and she would lower her voice, then glance around to see if anybody was in earshot, as if her father, long dead, might be lingering. “It was a very different time. It would have been very scandalous for a young lady to be seen chatting with members of a band.”