Demons are Forever: Confessions of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner

considered that only for a moment before turning to me, her eyes cool and deliberate. “I want to know, Mom,” she said. “I want to know why Daddy was killed.”
    “I do, too. But we tried. It’s been five years. There’s not a lot we can do now.” Eric had left us a series of clues, but we’d hit only dead ends. “I’ve tried, baby. But I haven’t learned a thing.”
    “There’s got to be something,” she said, her voice choked with unshed tears. “I mean, we can at least keep looking. Can’t we, Mom? For a little bit longer.”
    The pain and loss in her voice just about ripped me to pieces. And I pressed a soft kiss to her forehead as tears pooled in my eyes.
    “Of course,” I whispered. “We’ll do everything we can.”

Four
    Everything we can.
    My words echoed in my head for the rest of the afternoon, a dark cloud that seemed to weigh me down as I moved through the rest of the day, putting away laundry, sweeping the back porch, making dinner. Now I moved through the breakfast room to the archway that divided the room from the living area. Allie was in there with Timmy and Eddie, and the three of them were playing Hi Ho Cherry-O. Allie had Timmy on her lap, and Eddie was muttering something about the bird taking his darn cherries. The scene was domestic and sweet, and I never wanted it to change. Never wanted it painted red with fear or gray with distrust.
    More, I didn’t want Allie to long for the day she turned eighteen so that she could break ties with me and walk away. For two years after Eric’s death, we’d been each other’s strength, and even now that we had Stuart and Timmy, there was still an inescapable bond between us. Mother and daughter, yes, but something more, too.
    The revelation about Eric had left seeds of distrust in my soul, and even though I didn’t want to, now I was questioning our entire relationship. To know that Allie might soon feel the same about me—to know that the thread of trust might start to unravel—both terrified me and broke my heart.
    I had to tell her the truth. I had to tell her that I was still hunting demons. And I had to tell her soon.
    The weight of that obligation stayed with me, counterbalanced a bit by the relief that I’d made a decision. Having decided but not yet acted, though, made me a jittery wreck. And I spent the rest of the afternoon doing domestic chores simply because I knew that no one else in the household would likely volunteer to help me. I needed alone time, and scrubbing toilets was the best way I knew to get it.
    By five, the bathrooms were no longer functional science projects, I’d gotten a decent cardiovascular workout by lugging two boxes of neglected toys to the backyard storage shed, and I’d vacuumed the entire upstairs, evicting at least a dozen families of dust bunnies in the process.
    By the time I returned to the living room, my family had moved on to other activities. Timmy was outside, playing in his sandbox. Allie was reading on the porch, and Eddie was parked in his recliner, glasses perched on his nose as he muttered vague obscenities at today’s crossword.
    I busied myself cutting up broccoli to go with the simple chicken casserole I’d cobbled together an hour before. I’d learned long ago to stick with the basics for our meals. Meat loaf, pancakes, pasta, Hamburger Helper. Those I could handle. Braised salmon in a mango-chutney sauce? Not so much.
    I was just putting the broccoli in the steamer when the phone rang, and I grabbed it up, tucking it between my ear and my shoulder as I filled the steamer with water.
    “Kate,” David said. “Can you talk?”
    I heard the urgency in his voice and abandoned my broccoli. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine now,” he said. “But this morning...”
    “What? What happened?”
    “Attacked. In my own goddamned apartment.”
    “By a demon?” Which was an idiotic thing to ask, but the first thing that came to my mind.
    “Considering I’m only a