The Homeowner's Association

It’s the afternoons when I feel it the worst. An ache, deep in my belly, like I’m missing something. I have no idea what it could be. My life is full. I have a wonderful husband, James, a golden retriever, a dream job. Nothing is missing. Something is missing.

We live in a quiet gated community lined with beeches so young they need stakes to hold them upright. The grass is bright emerald and always freshly cut, a stark contrast to the desert that surrounds us. Our neighborhood is so new that the land surrounding it is all barren and empty. The nearest shopping center is at least a mile away.

Cars, however, are prohibited here. It’s one of the Homeowner’s Association rules. Each household gets a pearl-hued golf cart, and we drive these to the parking lot just outside our community gates.

But I can’t remember the last time I used our car. Or, actually, what our car looks like. That’s strange, isn’t it? Maybe it’s the heat, messing with my mind.

It’s the same heat that seems to keep us at home. Our groceries are delivered, and James and I work remotely. We each have our own office, freshly painted, on opposite ends of the house. I think our neighbors get deliveries, too. Nobody seems to use the golf carts for anything more than meeting at the community center in the heart of the neighborhood.

I go here a few times a week. There’s a fancy rounded pool made to look like a lagoon, with cement rocks framing a waterfall of chlorinated water. When it’s especially hot out, I like leaning my back against it and feeling the water rush over my shoulders.

Next to the pool are two tennis courts and a small patio cafe that plays Frank Sinatra on repeat. I’m sitting there now, staring into my cup of cappuccino, wondering why I feel so empty.

Is it the heat? No, it’s always like this, and the AC is running wherever I am, so I only ever feel uncomfortable when I’m walking from my golf cart to the community center, or to the house. From one AC to the other, really.

It can’t be thirst. I have one of those reusable water bottles with hourly goal marks on the side to remind me to keep drinking, and James has always joked about how competitive I am, even with myself.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s sex. Am I missing something in the bedroom? But James is fantastic at foreplay, and we both end things satisfied, multiple nights a week. I’ve Googled it a few times, mostly to be reminded that apparently we have the sex life that most couples dream about.

Maybe I need some cookies. Yes, chocolate chip. That sounds perfect.

My mouth is watering by the time I hop into the cart and make my way home. Rows of houses pass by, each with two stories. I don’t know this for sure, because I haven’t been inside many of them, but something tells me they’re each decorated the same: modern mission style, all beige and plaster and tiled floors, with prints on the wall of cacti or cowboys or something equally desert-appropriate.

James is on a video call on his computer when I open the front door. His office is next to the entry way, so I make sure to quietly hang my purse and tiptoe to the kitchen.

This is my favourite part of the house, not because I’m some kind of homemaker, because that can’t be farther from the truth, but because it’s so clean and smooth and expansive. Counters topped with white marble, a long island in the middle, with a wide-brimmed bowl of fresh fruit. Shiny metal appliances. Somehow, despite my best efforts, this kitchen is always so clean it looks like something out of an interior design magazine.

It’s probably the maid, come to think of it. Our Homeowner’s Association fees cover twice-weekly cleans, and she comes in and out so quietly that sometimes I forget she exists altogether.

I’m thinking about the maid as I preheat the oven and take a log of cookie dough out of the fridge.

It’s on the mornings that she comes to clean that I have the same nightmare. She arrives at around six in the morning, with her own key, and I vaguely register her arrival from under the comfort of my duvet. Then, I close my eyes, and the dream begins:

One man and one woman, both dressed in something akin to a hazmat suit. They stand over my bed and look down at me, talking, but I can’t understand what they’re saying, and I can’t make out their faces behind the blurry plastic of their helmets. The woman has a long needle.

I scream, beg them to stop, but the man is holding my wrists down. I tell them no, that I will find him. Someone. Who?

But then I scream again and it’s over and it’s nine in the morning and the maid is long gone and our kitchen smells like lemon.

I slice the cookie dough and put it in to bake. One of my favourite things to do is look through the oven window as the sweaty air distorts the scene before me. The dough goes through its slow metamorphosis of beige to gold, the chips melting.

I don’t care what the instructions say on the packaging, the smell of freshly baked cookies is too overpowering to wait for them to cool. I dive in immediately, match heat with cold milk, relish the melted chocolate. Yes, this is what I was missing.

But after two cookies, the same ache returns. It didn’t work. Disappointed, I grab our cookie jar on the counter to store the rest away. Maybe tomorrow, those cookies will fill whatever’s empty.

As I’m opening the lid, I hear a clink, and look inside. Something gold glimmers.

A locket. Shaped into a heart. Did I put this here? No, of course not, I would have remembered.

Now that it’s resting in my palm, though, the ache inside me grows. I recognise this locket, somehow, and even as I’m opening it, I already know its contents.

A tiny, folded piece of paper topples out. Framed inside is a baby, no more than six months old, bald and chubby in a navy blue onesie, smiling at the camera. His name is Tommy. How do I know that?

I unfold the paper. A note, in my handwriting. “Your baby. Find him.”

The trickle of memory is now a waterfall. It forces itself into my brain, unyielding, and I have no choice but to remember:

The hazmat suits.

Injections.

I’m not supposed to be here.

My son, screaming, as someone rips him from my arms. He’s just started saying ‘Mama,’ though I haven’t been sure whether he’s been consciously calling for me, or simply practicing new sounds. Either way, I’m hooked on him, and now they’re taking him away from me. He’s screaming ‘Mama’ and now I know, it’s for real. He shouldn’t be away from me.

But so quickly, he’s gone. Hours later, in the silence of a small room, maybe a prison cell, I scribble the note, and hide it in my locket. Then, I forget.

Over and over, though, the locket reminds me. Each time, the folded note dropping out, the remembering, just as painful as the moment they ripped him away. Then I resolve to get out of this neighbourhood, to fight, to find Tommy. Somehow, though, I always seem to fail. The hazmat suits make me forget. I keep the locket in the cookie jar to remind me the next time, hoping that, one day, I’ll succeed.

I’m not even sure what I think I can do.

The locket has now triggered memories of all of my escape attempts. For the first, I’d taken the golf cart to the parking lot, but when I got there, I couldn’t find my car. There were rows and rows of Suburbans, all the same year and model, but in varying colours. Before the Neighborhood, I’d driven a Prius, but it definitely wasn’t here.

The hazmat suits found me wandering through what felt like a cornfield of minivans. They gave me the injection, and I forgot. All over again.

The next time, I didn’t take the golf cart. Instead, I snuck to the parking lot at midnight, on foot. Still, they found me within twenty minutes.

I remember one time I’d succeeded jumping the eight-foot wall enclosing the neighbourhood. Thinking I had finally escaped for real, I ran as fast as I could through the velvety desert night. Spotlights above, then the suits, then the injection.

Once, I’d tried talking to James. He didn’t remember Tommy, or our life before this Neighborhood, but he seemed disturbed by my memories. That evening, during dinner, before I’d even left the house for my next attempt, the hazmat suits arrived. James watched, eyes blank, as they hauled me onto my back on the cool tiled floor. Above me, their faces, and then, forgetting.

When the locket reminded me of this, I realised with despair that my own husband must have called them. What did he know?

I can count at least twenty rounds of forgetting and remembering. It’s like those dreams that never seem to end. You think you’re awake, then, realize you’re not. Over and over again, until you think you’ll lose your mind.

Now, with the scent of cookies wafting through the kitchen, I begin to wonder if I should keep trying. The ache in my stomach is unbearable. I want Tommy back so badly. I want to smell his skin, nuzzle his cheek. See him laugh. Where is he?

Even with this new barrage of memories, I can barely recall my life before the Neighborhood. The world was broken in some way, and someone told me I was lucky that they took me. This had been after they pulled me away from Tommy, when I was sobbing in that room-or-cell.

This Neighborhood is more than a quaint new community. It’s a fortress, and it has so many invisible traps to keep us inside. I know, deep down, that I’ll never get out of here.

And I can’t think of anything else to try.

The pain of remembering Tommy is like a tidal wave crashing over me, pushing down against my body, and I can’t breathe, unless I try to swim away, towards him. But the Neighborhood is impossible to escape. And I’m so tired.

James has left his phone on the counter. It’s easy to figure out the number he dialed on the night he’d turned me in. I remember the date, so I scroll to an outgoing call to the Homeowner’s Association. Of course.

I tap the name and listen to the ringing.

Ten minutes later, I’m walking out the front door, the locket in hand. My brain is buzzing and the desert cold has set in. My skin prickles with goosebumps. No more remembering.

I bury the locket under a rose bush. We have gardeners come once weekly, so I’ll never bother digging around here. This hiding place isn’t like the cookie jar — largely unused, until the ache for my son starts up again. This time, I won’t find the locket.

The hazmat suits are walking towards me. I say a silent prayer for Tommy, that wherever he is, he’s happy. Then, I wave, and I sit on the fresh grass, damp with night, while I wait for my injection.