She heard the tap again. It was the third one that night. Deciding enough was enough, she went into her husband’s study and turned on the cameras.
Another tap sang at the door. She swiped through the different cameras, breathlessly searching for the porch. Her mind relaxed when she found the camera, but what she saw made her run for her husband.
Kelly was unlike most twenty-six-year-olds in her neighborhood. She was done with grad school and was a year into a happy marriage with Brad Shoemaker, her high school sweetheart.
Life was perfect for Shoemakers. They had all that a young couple dreamed of, a good home, stable income, and undying love between the two of them. But this would soon
change.
The Shoemaker family dynamic changed when Jeremy was born. Although his birth brought a lot of happiness to Kelly and Brad, it made staying in their city apartment impossible.
Seeing how his wife constantly stressed over the matter, Brad suggested moving to the countryside. Kelly immediately agreed. She didn’t know what she was signing up for.
The family moved to a beautiful house away from the chaos of the city. Jeremy was two at the time. Of all the Shoemakers, he loved their new home the most.
Lush trees that housed squirrels surrounded the Shoemaker home. To two-year-old Jeremy, this was heaven. But his mom wasn’t on the same page as him.
“A scurry of squirrels can attract a predator, Brad,” Kelly told her husband one night. She’d realized Jeremy loved spending time in their yard with the squirrels and was beginning to think the worst.
Even though there were predators in their county, Brad assured her everything was fine. His stand on the matter changed one night when a knock woke them up.
It was a cold Saturday night when the Shoemakers heard the knock on their porch door. Brad reached for his bat and walked downstairs to check.
Kelly joined him, her own bat in hand. She wiggled her brows when he gawked at her. Then she slid the porch door open. What they saw froze them in their tracks.
Before Kelly and Brad lay a bleeding squirrel. An open wound stained one of its hind legs. It squeaked, and Kelly rushed to its aid.
The Shoemakers took in the injured animal. They cleaned and wrapped its wound. Jeremy brought a blanket to keep it warm. But even though the house quieted down once more, Kelly couldn’t help but feel something else was afoot.
A year passed, and Lily, the newest member of the Shoemakers, was healed. The family released her back into the wild, knowing she had a family that longed to see her.
The house felt a little empty now that Lily was gone. But it wasn’t long before the Shoemakers began hearing taps on their porch door at odd hours of the night.
The Shoemakers raced to the porch door the first night they heard the knocks. They found nothing but their dark yard staring at them.
A month went by, with the knocks recurring every night. Then the months turned into a year. Before the Shoemakers knew it, Jeremy was in fifth grade. Kelly was finalizing her Ph.D., and Brad was the manager at his firm. But even with all these changes, something remained the same.
Eight years had passed, yet the Shoemakers were still hearing the taps on their porch door. Fed up by the state of things, Brad set cameras all around his backyard. He positioned some over the driveway as well.
That weekend, Kelly spent her night staring at the cameras. What she saw made his heart stop.
“Brad!” Kelly raced upstairs to wake her husband. She dashed into Jeremy’s room as well, dragging the ten-year-old from sleep.
“It’s two in the morning, Kelly,” Brad lamented as he followed her and Jeremy. “What is it?” Kelly didn’t answer. She pulled both of them to Brad’s study, pointing at the porch camera with wide eyes.
Brad gasped. He focused the video feed, zooming in on what he was seeing. Kelly reached out for Jeremy, hugging him as Brad wrapped himself around them.
A squirrel was tapping the porch. “Lily?” Jeremy asked, and Kelly nodded. The squirrel was grown, its coat more detailed. The family was about to race to let Lily in when the squirrel did the unexpected.
Lily climbed up the rafter and disappeared. “Change cameras,” Jeremy almost barked. Brad switched the computer’s view to one of the cameras looking at the house.
“There,” Jeremy pointed, Lily was on the roof. She climbed into a small divide between tiles. “Attic?” Kelly suggested, and they all raced upstairs. Their jaws dropped at what they found.
Lily was lying in her old cuddler. She nestled three kittens between her legs, peacefully feeding them.
Kelly broke into happy tears. “This is amazing,” she said. Brad and Jeremy did not speak. Kelly reached out for them, and they held each other as they watched. Jeremy sneaked away, returning a minute later with Lily’s old blanket. “We are a family again, mom,” he smiled.
The Shoemakers bought Lily a new cuddler, one big enough to fit Jossie, Alen, and Cliff, her kids. Brad also cleaned up the attic and made it more friendly to the animals.
They discovered that each of the nights they’d heard a knock on their porch, it was Lily. She had been living in their attic all this time. For Kelly, it was amazing watching the baby she raised raise her own babies.