Saturday Fiction

Small Eyes

Reeta saw the man take the little girl. She saw the whole thing from her front porch. She had come out to get her mail when she saw a man down the block. He was standing on the sidewalk, just looking around. He couldn’t see her, she didn’t think. He just stood there, looking around. Reeta stared right at him, waiting for him to turn his head and see her watching.

The phone rang and she jumped. She closed the front door but not all the way and went inside to look at the phone. Call display said nothing. She didn’t answer.

Reeta went back out to her porch and he was still standing on the sidewalk, still looking around. She didn’t know why she kept watching him. She knew he was going to do something before he did it, that’s what she thought afterwards, she knew he was up to something. So she watched.

But when he did do something, when he took the little girl by the wrist so hard her arm bent up like an arrow, and pulled her behind him into the red sedan parked right there, next to where he had been standing, Reeta couldn’t move. She had been watching, waiting for him to do something and he had done something and then she couldn’t move.

How did he keep her quiet, she wondered. How did that little girl just go, hop in the front seat with him, drive off, without making any noise. Was he a relative? A friend of the family?

When she saw the story on the news weeks later, after they found the girl’s body, Reeta knew it had not been a friend of the family. No one who had a connection to a little girl could do things like that to her. She watched the news, shaking her head slightly. Her husband said it was terrible. Disgusting. Her children were in their bedroom, playing with Lego. They didn’t watch the news. It was more violent than other kinds of TV put together, that’s what her husband said.

The only mystery then, was why didn’t she say anything. Why didn’t she say anything when the girl appeared on her lawn, when she disappeared, when she was found mangled and dead. Why did Reeta keep her lips tightly shut when she saw everything, knew everything.

Reeta didn’t know. Maybe she thought it was too late, but that wasn’t it because they still hadn’t caught the man, the murderer. He was still on the loose, at large, he could be in their neighbourhood, watching their house. Maybe he remembered her standing on her porch, watching him. Maybe her kids were next. Maybe she was next.

Was it wrong for Reeta to feel a quick thrill right before the dread and panic when she imagined this? Yes, it was wrong, but she still felt it. She still felt anxious and bored, anxious and bored, all the time. She needed some livening up. Thrill and dread made a nice change.

Reeta stared into her own eyes in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes were small and the corners drooped. Her aunt Cindy had told her she had small eyes when she was a little girl and Reeta had always identified with pigs or mice, those cute ugly animals with their eyes peering out of their pudgy faces. Make-up made no difference, she had tried. She had perfect vision so she didn’t even get to wear glasses to magnify them. Small eyes, they were her cross to bear.

Her husband knocked on the bathroom door. She ignored him. They only had one bathroom in this house, not like the last house. It was called down-sizing for a reason. She wondered if they would ever up-size again. They were lucky; they still had a house. After all, there were people who lived in boxes, with their suitcases, on the street. Six kids and a cardboard box. Of course, then there were the people with no kids and big houses. The little girl had been an only child and now her parents were alone in their house, with only pictures of her and dried up flowers in rancid vases taking up all the space.

Her own daughter was five years old. Her son was seven. She was well past her childbearing years. If one of the children died, Reeta would have to make do with the other. If they both died, well, she would have to mourn them. Reeta stared hard at herself. Her mouth frowned. Her lips were cracked. She could never find her lip balm when she wanted it.

You all right in there, he called from outside the door. He liked to read his textbooks in the bathroom, for the peace and quiet.

She could tell, she supposed. She could tell everyone what she had seen. She could still picture him perfectly well. She could help an artist sketch a composite. Still, it was nice having a secret.

Reeta turned out the light and unlocked the door. The dishes needed doing.