Page 120 of Echoes

“Shit,” she muttered as Lydia stood up, bringing Eliza’s shorts and underwear with her for Eliza to put back on.

“We’re fine. We were justdoing laundry,” Lydia told her as she wiped her mouth.

“You stay in here,” Eliza instructed, pointing at her wife. “I’ll distract him.”

Lydia smiled at her and said, “To be continued tonight, in our bedroom, after they are all asleep.”

Eliza winked at her, unlocked and opened the door, and went into the kitchen, where she found her son staring down at his tablet.

“Hey, honey. What’s up?”

“Are we having tacos for dinner?”

“Yes, we are. Mom said there was a debate over beef or chicken.”

“I wanted ground turkey,” he offered.

“We don’t have turkey. We have beef, and I think I have some chicken breasts that we can shred up a bit. That’s fun, huh?”

Eliza walked to the sink and washed her hands, knowing he wasn’t paying attention to her.

“That’s not fun,” he replied. “Can we just have pizza instead?”

“No, we’re having tacos. And you’re going to help your mom with dinner,” Lydia told him as she emerged from the laundry room. “While I go wash up myself.”

“Why were youbothin there?” he asked, looking at the open laundry room door now.

“Because no one else in this house helps with the laundry,” Lydia covered and walked by him. “I’ll be right back.”

Eliza winked at her and got dinner sorted.

After they’d all eaten and the kids had done the dishes, they retired to the living room to watch a movie they could all agree on. Another miracle. After that, all the kids went to bed, and Eliza went to clean up the living room and kitchen evening mess to give herself one less thing to worry about tomorrow.

“What’s this?” Lydia asked, nodding toward the envelope in the pile of junk mail.

“I don’t know. There’s no return address,” she offered.

Lydia went about opening the envelope while Eliza put a couple of glasses in the dishwasher.

“Um…”

Eliza turned when she heard her wife stutter a bit.

“What’s wrong?”

“It just says, ‘It’s done.’ on it.” Lydia held out a piece of paper.

Eliza took it from here, and it, indeed, only had two words written on it, but on the other side, there was an infinity symbol.

“Do you think–”

“It’s from him, yeah,” she said. “It’s done.”

“Meaning, he found it?”

“I think it means he destroyed it,” Eliza replied.

“Damn. How did he do it?” Lydia asked.

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