The Baby next Door

You heard that as well, right?

I stood there, my legs completely numb, which made it impossible for me to move. My back was facing the passage way, which is the direction the sound had come from. The front of my body faced my family, who stared at my face with - confusion? So many questions were forming in my mind: why were none of them afraid? Why did they seem confused? Did the voice belong to the figure that I had seen earlier? If not, then what on earth was that?

All these questions just made me freeze there, my feet cemented to the ground. 

"Miles, you okay there bud?"

Whoever the voice had belonged to, it's hand had reached out from the darkness and touched my shoulder. I shrieked like a little child. I ran all the way round the kitchen, and hid behind Kate. After a few seconds of pure terror, and me hiding behind the kitchen counter that Kate was located at, I peered over the kitchen counter. The room was filled with shear silence. Everyone in the room stared at me in utter confusion. Kate and Karen were by my side, and standing in the passage way, staring right at me, totally confused, was - Ben?

It was in that moment that I remembered that Ben had left me to empty the car while he went ahead and freshened up. Karen had used the nearest bathroom, while Ben had to use the guest bathroom. We had not been to that part of the house yet.

"BEN?! Oh my word. Do not you ever do anything like that ever again. Jeez."

"Are you okay? You have been acting weird since you arrived from the airport."

I held my hands to my chest because my heart seemed to be beating out of my chest. I was gasping for air. 

"Uh, yea. I am just exhausted I guess."

While I struggled for my life there, Kate thankfully redirected the attention to a more important aspect of the night.

"Yea, right. Anyway, on another note, dinner is ready guys."

"Oh yes, I am starving - the food on the plane was not too good. What did you cook Katie?"

Ben was definitely excited for dinner, Karen continued to stare at me in pure disappointed.

"Uh, well dad, I made - um. Miles, you feel like helping me here?" 

Kate was struggling to answer the question raised forward by a famished Ben, because she was not there when I ordered the food.

"Yea, we have a steak and some mashed potatoes. It is insanely delicious. in my opinion."

The good thing about Ben, is that he does not really question anything - so he does not really care as to why Kate struggled to give a response to the question he had raised. However, as you may have already guessed, Karen had some issues on her mind, which she obviously shared with everyone.

"Wait, why could you not answer your father Kate? What is going on here?"

Now, I am a genius secret keeper and liar, but my dear wife here is a terrible liar. She struggles with keeping things to herself. So before she could say anything in response to Karen's question, I had to say something, in order to prevent our predicament to be exposed.

"We have been on our toes for the entire week, she is exhausted. I had dinner sorted out to ease the tension of her shoulders."

Kate stared at me in pure gratitude. while Karen looked at me and I could tell she was about to say something in response. Obviously, I nearly had a heart attack, so I was not in the mood to have an argument with Karen. To stop her from saying anything else I said

"Let us please dig in before the food gets cold."

"I am way ahead of you all." We all turn to Ben, who is basically half way through dinner.

"See, Ben is with the program. Let us join him, please?"

Kate and I seat ourselves next to each other and dished out the food. Thankfully, Karen had followed our lead and seated herself down next to Ben.

"Kate, this is amazing, but it tastes awfully familiar. Are you sure you made it?"

Karen was making my life a whole lot more difficult by asking these useless questions. This time I was not quick enough to stop Kate from blurting out something that jeopardizes our back up plan for dinner.

"Okay, I am sorry mom. So this morning, I had put the food in the oven and left the house. Miles had no idea that I placed the food in the oven, as I had done so before he had gotten up and entered the kitchen. While he was in the kitchen, the food was in the oven for too long and had exploded from over heat. Although I have no idea how on earth chicken can explode, it did just that. So, on the way to pick you guys up from the airport, Miles ordered take away from the nearest restaurant, because all the grocery stores were closed. We hid the food all the way because I was embarrassed. And the only thing that had exposed our entire operation is my big mouth. I am so sorry Miles"

"It is okay, it does not matter. It is fine."

Karen's jaw was basically touching the floor at this point, while Ben was licking his fingers. You know what, I aspire to be Ben when I am older. He is my role model.

I rubbed my forehead out of astonishment of Kate's amazing abilities to keep a secret.

"Okay, it does not matter who made the food, or where it came from, can we just enjoy the food that it is here?"

I was a bit annoyed with Karen's pestering and I was still recovering from the near death experience an innocent Ben had given to me not too long ago.

We had finished our dinner and Karen and Ben had gone to shower. While they were gone and we had the room to ourselves, Kate took the opportunity to apologize once more.

"Miles, honey, I am so sorry."

"Babe, chill, it is fine. Do not worry."

We cleared the table for a bit and got most of the dishes done in silence. However, I could sense that Kate had a question on her mind.

"What is wrong babe? You seem distant."

"I already told you, I am tired."

"Yea okay, I understand that, but there is something further going on. What are you not telling me?"

The last thing that I wanted was to freak Kate out. Especially when her parents were around, because she would lose her s**t. So I had to beat around the bush as much as I could.

"What do you mean?"

"Okay look, in the garden when you arrived after picking my parents up from the airport, you were stunned by something. You said it was because you were tired, but then when Ben called you from the hall way, you freaked out again. It was the exact same look you had earlier in the garden."

Now, there is something you should know about Kate - not only can she not keep secrets, she also has amazing technique to uncover the secrets being kept by other people around her. She will not stop investigating and pestering until she finds out the full truth.

"Babe, you are overthinking this. There is nothing happening here. You need to calm down."

Before Kate could continue her investigation, Ben walked back into the kitchen.

"Hey guys, listen. The bathroom over there down the hall, it has quite the unpleasant smell there. You might want to take a look at it. It is bad."

Kate and I both stared at each other in confusion. The main reason behind our confusion was due to the fact that we had not touched that area of the house yet.

"Oh sorry dad, Miles and I will definitely take a look at the smell later on. Right now, let us get to bed. We have a long day tomorrow."

I turned to Kate and stared at her in shock.

"I am terribly sorry, um, what is happening tomorrow?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean 'what do you mean'"

"We are taking my parents to see the city."

"And when exactly did we have this conversation happen?"

"I do not see the problem here, all you have to do is drive us around. We might even go to the carnival and the fair. Maybe the beach. Who knows?"

"Babe, the so called 'problem' is that my time off from work has expired. I have got to go to the office. Mike had only given me the weekend off. I also have a meeting tomorrow which my attendance is crucial."

Our quarrel was interrupted by the sound of a door closing. It was Ben - he had completely ignored us and went ahead to bed.

We both sighed out of exhaustion and cleared the remaining dirt from the kitchen. I made my way up the stairs, towards the bedroom and Kate slowly followed me up the staircase.

I hopped in the shower and I could hear her rustling around the bedroom.

Once I had gotten out I addressed the elephant in the room.

"Babe, when were you going to tell me about your plans for tomorrow? I then could have at least tried to make plans around it so that I could make it."

She dropped her book and stared at me. It was once of those faces that immediately point out that you are going to be sleeping on the couch.

"I thought you were off from work a lot longer. It is not my fault."

"Okay, I am not saying it is your fault, but I had no idea of it."

"Hold on a minute, you did not answer what happened with you today, my father disturbed us."

Once again, just before I could answer, we heard a noise - or I heard a noise.

I stared at Kate in complete horror. I was convinced that I was losing my s**t. I struggled to string together the words to make a sentence. I noticed that Kate was just staring at me with a raised eye brow. I could tell that it was just me that heard that, but I decided to ask anyway.

"You heard that as well, right?"