Ezoic
No forced entry.
No broken glass.
No alarm.
Just a smooth turn of a key.
Only three people in the entire world had keys to that door.
Me.
Ezoic
Quasi.
And the spare key that lived in his home office, hidden in the locked desk drawer.
“Mama…” Kenzo’s voice shook with terror. “How do they have our key?”
I couldn’t answer because my throat had closed up completely.
The two men disappeared inside our home.
Ezoic
The house where I had slept peacefully just the night before.
Where I’d made grits and eggs for Kenzo that very morning.
Where our family photos hung on the hallway walls.
They didn’t turn on any lights.
Instead, I saw thin beams of flashlights sweeping across the curtains, methodical and efficient.
They weren’t there to steal our TV or jewelry.
Ezoic
They were preparing something.
I don’t know how long we sat there watching in horror.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Time completely blurred.
Then I smelled it.
Ezoic
At first, I thought the smell was just in my head—a faint, sharp chemical tang carried on the breeze.
But it grew stronger, more distinct.
Unmistakable.
Gasoline.
“Mama, what’s that smell?” Kenzo asked, his voice small and frightened.
Ezoic
That’s when I saw the first curl of smoke.
A thin gray thread slipped out from the living room window.
Another appeared from the kitchen side.
And then the glow appeared—an ugly, orange light licking hungrily at the edges of the curtains.
Fire.
Ezoic
“No.”
I was out of the car before I even realized I’d moved, my body acting on pure instinct.
“No. No. No.”
“Mama, no!” Kenzo’s little hands grabbed desperately for me from the back seat, his voice cracking with panic. “You can’t go there! Please!”
He was right.
Ezoic
I knew he was right.
But it was my house.
My things.
The photos from when Kenzo was born.
My wedding dress, carefully boxed up in the closet.
The crayon drawings from preschool taped lovingly to the refrigerator.
Ezoic
The quilt my grandmother had stitched by hand before she died.
All of it.
Burning.
