The Intruder

by Freida McFadden

I see a glint of something in the corner of the shed, probably some sort of old gardening tool. Once this storm is over, I’ll have to take a closer look at the contents, but now is not the time.

“I believe,” I finally say, “that everything happens as it should.” She doesn’t blink. “Do you?” “I do.” “Then,” she says, “you’re very stupid.”

This is going so well. I won’t need that knife in my backpack at all, I bet.

“Well,” he says, “you get dysentery.” Everything is different after that. My father isn’t perfect—he’s an ex-con and recovering alcoholic—but he tries his best to give me a good home. There’s always food in the refrigerator, and we do end up moving to a two-bedroom apartment where I get my own space, and he never once tries to lock me in a closet.

But when the truth comes out, he takes my hand in his and gives it a squeeze. Good girl, Casey, he tells me. She deserved it. I almost forgot that this was a man who beat another man badly enough to land him in the hospital. That’s why he went to prison in the first place. He admits to me that the man he assaulted was not just a random man in the bar. He had discovered this man was sleeping with his girlfriend—my mother.