When You Reach Me

Things You Don’t Forget

Our apartment door was unlocked when I got home from school that Friday, which was strange. More than strange, actually—it had never happened before. But I figured Mom had probably just forgotten to lock it when she left for work that morning. It sounds stupid now that I say it, but that’s what I thought.

Once I was inside, though, I had this sudden fear that I wasn’t alone in the apartment. I dropped my knapsack in the hall and ran down to Sal’s. He came to the door but opened it just enough to squeeze his body into the crack.

“My door was unlocked,” I said. “Doesn’t that seem weird?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe you forgot to lock it?” He stayed there wedged into the doorway. Definitely not inviting me in.

“Yeah, probably.” I could hear the television behind him, blaring a commercial.

“Okay.” He looked up at the ceiling behind me.

I felt like an idiot. “Okay. See you later.”

I went back upstairs, made myself a bowl of Cheerios with an inch of sugar on top, and turned on the television. Mom walked in around six.

“You forgot to lock the door this morning,” I said.

“What? No, I didn’t.”

“Well, it wasn’t locked when I got home today.”

“It wasn’t?” She started walking from room to room, opening drawers and closet doors, and I followed her.

“It can’t be,” she said. “I would never forget to lock the door.”

Nothing seemed out of place. She got to the kitchen and stopped. “I guess I don’t specifically remember locking it, but I know I would never not lock it….”

She filled the spaghetti pot with water, and we talked about other stuff while she set the table and I peeled some carrots, but every once in a while she would interrupt herself to say, “How could I have forgotten to lock the door?”

We were halfway through dinner when she suddenly stood up and walked out of the apartment.

“Mom?”

I found her standing in the stairwell, peering into the nozzle of the fire hose. “I knew it,” she said. “I would never forget to lock the door. Never.”

The key was gone. We searched every room all over again but couldn’t find a single thing missing.

“It makes no sense,” Mom said, standing over her jewelry box and staring down at the gold bracelets that had belonged to her mother. “Why steal the key, unlock the door, and not take anything?”

That was Friday afternoon. I found your first note Monday morning.