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I was on time, and I paid him.
More than he’d initially asked for.
Still, Mateo’s threat from the other day screams through my mind loudly.
I never got any phone calls or texts from her, though. None from Sander either. If something had happened, one of them would have called me. Right?
Unless they couldn’t.
Panic drops like a weight in my stomach and I scramble up the front steps, keys rattling in my hand as I attempt to unlock the front door.
I finally manage to get a hold of the correct key and slide it into the lock, turning it with a loud click. I push the door open and stumble inside.
“Ma!” I call out frantically.
The light above the stove top is on, casting most of the tiny kitchen and shadows.
“Ma!” I call out again and am met with the sound of her slippered feet shuffling across the tiled floor.
Her head peers around the corner into the hallway, meeting my frantic days with one of her own.
“Keaton, what’s wrong?”
“Are you okay?” I ask, nearly out of breath as I reach for her arms, comforted by the fact that she’s standing before me.
“I told you not to worry about me,” she scolds.
“Ma,” I say more insistently.
“Keaton, I’m fine. What’s all this about?”
“I saw the smashed flowerpot when I walked up. What happened?”
Her eyebrows knit together, and confusion as she explains, “I knocked it over last night. I was carrying groceries and bumped into it, but it was too dark to clean it up. I was going to do it today.”
I feel like a marionette whose strings have been cut loose as I slump over with relief.
“Why would that have you in such a panic?” she asks, placing her hand over my shoulder.
I shake my head, irritated that I would let something like that send me into a complete fit.
“Is this about the vandals from a couple of years ago?” She asks.
I lift my eyes to hers but remain silent.
“Honey, that was just a bunch of kids running the neighborhood, making trouble for everyone. There is nothing to worry about. Everything’s okay.”
I offer her a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes, but I feel guilty for putting her in a situation where a broken flowerpot could mean ten times worse than this.
“Sorry Ma, it just caught me off guard, I guess.”
She steps up and hugs me tightly, rocking me from side to side and soothing my hair away from my face.
“So? How was it?” She asks, changing the subject as she pulls back and holds me at arm’s length.
I smile half-heartedly at her, the bubble of my little getaway popping as reality sets back in. “Fun, I’m glad I went.”
“Did your friend win?” she asks with a little wiggle of her eyebrows.
