But the family tree before me didn’t jibe with what I remembered from my high school research. I knew Zachary Taylor had six children: a boy and five girls. I’d had to memorize them for a presentation, and I could still recite the mnemonic device I’d used back then to remember their first names: A.S.O.M.M.R., pronounced Awesomer.
But according to this sheet, the prez had a seventh child, represented by a blank square placed next to daughter Octavia’s name.
The generation beneath this empty box was represented by the name “Reginald Garrett Taylor,” which meant the mystery child above had been male.
The bloodline from this branch of the tree—if this document was credible, which I was suddenly beginning to doubt—went down throughout the ages, and ended with…
…with Lucas and me.
“Bullshit distraction,” I said, refolding the paper. I placed it in the stack beside me and went deeper into the box. I was looking for history, but not ancient history. I picked up another photo and smiled.
Here I was, gap-toothed, with a bowl-shaped haircut, playing with Lucas in the snow. I couldn’t have been older than ten. Here was another photo of my brother, performing a handstand in our living room. A younger version of Gram beamed at him.
I went further back, and stopped. I remembered this. Summertime in New Jersey, parked near the Essex County Airport, watching planes soar from the tarmac. I couldn’t have been more than four years old. Here was my mother, Claire, holding an infant Lucas, grinning at the camera. I was there, and Dad was holding me, telling me where the planes were going. I must stress: I remember this.
Love you, I’d said.
Love you back, buddy.
But this wasn’t my father in the photo. I flipped it over. “Claire, Lookie-Luke, Zach and Henry at E.C. Airport,” the note read.
It didn’t happen the way they said it did. It’s all lies.
Empty boxes in the family tree. Lives erased from history.
I stepped over to the computer. I opened the Journal-Ledger’s archives, and did what my art told me to do.
I searched for hidden help. For lost, invisible history. I saw, alone.
And the memories, so many long-forgotten memories, rushed over me.
The wooden trains go choo-choo and the metal cars go vroom-vroom and the plastic planes go whoosh-whoosh here in Living Room City, where the roads are stitched into the Oriental rug and the buildings are painted shoeboxes and the airstrip is a neatly taped length of construction paper. I’m the four-year-old mayor of Living Room City, directing traffic, flying planes, marching children to the playground and, uh-oh, another thunderstorm’s coming, we all have to go inside now.
I’m gazing up above Living Room City, airplane in hand, inbound for a landing but now in a holding pattern. I stop blowing air against the plane and its propellers stop swirling, like me, stopping, watching the thunderstorm on the walls.
I know it’s not really a thunderstorm; that’s just what I call these moments when I’m Mayor of Living Room City. I’m not silly, I know it’s make-believe. The room goes dark, goes light, goes dark again, blinky-blink, peek-a-boo. Dad’s colored-glass Tiffany lamp is a rainbow, now dark, now a rainbow again, and the lights on the walls wink like giant eyes, and Mister Rogers on the TV fades and comes back. He has a little city just like I do, with tiny houses and cars and stores. I watch the lights flicker, they’ve done this for the past two weeks, and when Dad is here and it happens he gets mad, and Mommy gets quiet and afraid, and I’m a little afraid too, because the thunderstorms have come back to Living Room City.
Wink-blink go the lights, It’s a beautiful d—Mister Rogers’ voice sings, and fades, and comes back—eighbor, could y—Dark, with the lights, now back!—eighborly day for a beaut—Off again! It’s like twisting the radio knob in Dad’s car. Dad doesn’t like it when I do that.
I look around the living room. I’m the only one here, Mommy is upstairs, she’s gone for just a few minutes, needs to feed Lookie-Luke, the baby-baby, my baby brother, always hungry and cooing, his face is so round and his hair is so curly, and he squeals when I tickle him and then I squeal because it’s so funny and—
Screaming.
Upstairs, screaming.
Upstairs, Mommy and Lookie-Luke, screaming.
I’m dropping the plane, and standing up, and I’m suddenly very afraid, I need to pee, and the lights are still out in Living Room City, but I see that the lights in the room by the front door, the place where the long, tall stairs are—the foh-yay, Daddy calls it—those lights are on, and I’m running toward the foh-yay, my blue Zips scattering the cars and trains on the floor like that monster I saw on television last week (’ZILLA! ’ZILLA!), and I really need to pee now, and the lights flick on in the living room and Mister Rogers is singing again and I pass the doorway into the foh-yay, my shoes are squeaking against the hardwood and there’s Mommy, at the top of the stairs, screaming, her arm extended toward someone—
The lights here flash bright for a moment, and I squint, and then they explode like suns, tiny tinklings of glass falling from the walls, from the ceiling, from table lamps, and the lampshades are collapsing, clattering onto the tables.
I stare at the top of the stairs, watch my mother scream—Lookie-Luke is crying from the bedroom, it’s so loud, it’s all so loud—and something is clutching at her wrist, tugging her away from the stairs, something soaked in shadow, something grunting and snarling and black and hungry, roaring now, and
mommy pulls away, her face triumphant, and her eyes turn to me and
Mister Rogers is singing let’s make the most of this beautiful day and she falls
she falls down the stairs
since we’re together
tumbling still, body smashing against the wood, face smacking against the banister, her head now clack-clack-clacking against its white spindles, and something red and messy sprays against the wall
we might as well say
stones rattling in a clothes dryer, she tumbles and tumbles and
would you be mine?
something wet and crunchy rises above the noise, I know the sound, it’s like biting into a carrot
could you be mine?
and Mommy’s with me now, on the floor, her eyes wide open, like they’re asking a question, and the blood leaks into her left eye, her legs are tangled, unmoving
won’t you be my nnnnn
no, no, I look from Mommy’s face to the top of the stairs and I see it, the black thing hulking there, shoulders heaving, and Lucas sounds like a police siren now, eeeooooo—
won’t you, please?
and the monster steps forward, its midnight feet crunching on the stairs, on the broken glass there, coming for me
won’t you, please?
and I feel the pee rush down my legs and a feel a moment of hot shame before I sway, feeling sick, head fuzzy
please won’t you be
and the world goes black, as the dark man descends.
I blinked, focused my eyes, coaxed myself to face the world again. The memory was scalding, pure and new; I’d forgotten the last time I’d even remembered that day. It had been buried under two decades of fear and… I guess… a need to forget.
The documents I’d found using Rachael’s Journal-Ledger backstage pass were slicing a razor-sharp rift between Then and Now. I realized how easy it could be to let go, to shrug it all off, to slip out of the thin, dry snakeskin we call sanity. For the first time in my life, The Brink beckoned to another side of me.