I take the final few stairs in a rush. The house creaks, and I hold my breath, but there’s no sound from upstairs. They’re sleeping, Ima and the girls, of course they are. Their doors are closed. They’re not going to hear me. And once I get inside the study… well, we all know how soundproof that door is.

I remember when Abba brought in the men to soundproof it. Whenever I tell Ima that, she laughs because, apparently, I couldn’t have been more than two at the time, but I know I remember. I remember the door they took down, a simple wooden one with a gap at the bottom, big enough that I could lie down and press my head to the floor to see what was going on inside the room. And then they installed the new one, white wood with whatever other materials they use to make it heavy. And airtight. And absolutely soundproof.

I never liked that door. Tonight, though, it’ll work in my favor.

I just need to get inside.

The door is locked. I knew it would be; tried it just in case. But I also know where to look for the keys.

Not Abba’s key ring. I don’t have any idea where that is; in the small valise of personal items that a somber-faced police officer returned to us shortly after the levayah? Or lost forever?

There’s backup, though; Ima keeps a copy of all the house keys on a key ring somewhere in the kitchen. I think it’s on one of the pantry shelves, inside an empty clay jar one of the girls made when we went to Clay Craze Ceramics a few years back.

I move a barstool over to the pantry to reach the jar. Inside, my fingers touch a ring of keys. I feel a flash of triumph. Got them.

Now for the tricky part.

I scramble off the barstool, hold the keys up to the windows set in the back door, where moonlight filters faintly through. Which one would open the door of the study?

Some are obvious nos: the thick, rusty key that unlocks the bike shed; the front and backdoor keys; the small ones for various cabinets, maybe Ima’s jewelry box or something. I’m left with five possibilities.

I leave the barstool in place for when I return the key ring, and head for the door half hidden in an alcove at the top of the basement stairs.

I insert the first key in the lock. It doesn’t go.

The second key jams. I pull it out hard, and the rest of the keys clang against the soundproof door; not a soundproof noise at all. I breathe in sharply, and there seems to be an echoing noise from outside, a slight thud, a movement.

I wait a moment, but nothing happens. I’m imagining things.

Third key. I need to do this. I’ve been waiting to do this, planning this ever since… ever since.

Because the door is locked now, and no one has gone inside since Abba left last week. Left for what became the very last time. But I’m not an idiot. I know what’s going to happen in a few days, when the shivah is over. At some point, they — Ima, or my grandparents, whom I never saw that much but are all over the house these days— they’ll call in some cleaning company. They’ll go through Abba’s study, Abba’s sanctuary. And they’ll organize the piles of papers, the strange-looking science-y tools, the computer screens and tech devices and notebooks and things, into cold categories: To Toss, To Give Away, To Keep.

Ima will look over everything with a cursory glance and say she doesn’t know anything about anything, they should do whatever they think.

And my last chance to understand— well, everything — will be gone, forever.

The third key doesn’t work. I’m sweating now as I try the fourth. It slides into the lock and turns.

I don’t believe it.

For one moment I just stand there, overcome with the enormity of what I may be about to discover.

And then I take a deep breath, and push open the door.

***

“This is the house.”

The taller man stands back, lets his partner assess the building, his brow dark and furrowed.

“We’ll go in through the back.”

Silently, swiftly, the men circle the house, keeping close to the shadow of its walls. When they reach the backdoor, a spotlight flickers on, momentarily dazzling them both.

The taller man flings himself back into the shadows. His partner gives a calculated look at the light fixture above their heads and jabs a small, thin tool in its direction. The light goes out.

They wait a few tense moments, but all is still. It’s after 3 a.m.; no one should conceivably have noticed them, and yet…

“I hate to do this,” the first man mutters.

The second is bent over a small toolkit. He doesn’t bother looking up. “You know we have to.”

The first man sighs. “There’s a wife and kids.”

The second man finally straightens, two small metal items in his hands gleaming in the thin moonlight. “That’s why we’re doing this at this time of night. They’ll be sleeping. We’ll go in, do what we have to do, and leave. They’ll never know the difference.”

“Still. I wish there was another way.”

“You know there isn’t.” The second man is talking in a grim, low tone as he begins working on the backdoor lock. “She would never let us in. We know the room we need. And we need any evidence we can get before…”

The taller man lifts his palms to the sky. “Before anyone else gets to it. I know.”

The second man gives a short nod, and the door clicks open. A shaft of dim light hits the kitchen and the men glance around. It’s large, clean but cluttered: two full garbage bags, covered trays of cookies and cakes. The door to what seems like the pantry is open, and a barstool stands in front of it, like someone climbed up to hunt for a midnight snack and forgot to clean up the evidence.

The men sidestep the stool, and the taller one leans over and breathes the next words into his partner’s ear.

“Top of the basement stairs. That’s the door we need.”

Silently, they steal through the dark, echoing house.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Treeo, Issue 996)