The moments. This was who my mother was. Tough. Brave. Hardworking. And, quite possibly the most important thing of all, not someone who was easily rattled.
Now that I’m nearly the age she was when Andy was born, there’s no question that I look just like her. But it wasn’t until I saw that doll disappear that I knew how alike we really were.
So many of the moments from my youth are lost in a haze, brief bits of memories that have changed, blended, or been created whole cloth by my mind. In other words, I don’t always trust my memory, because most moments aren’t memorable enough to move over to the long-term area, like a stamp in steel. With that said, I can vividly remember the few minutes after seeing that hand snatch Sallie’s toy away. Me sitting there, staring at the blank screen, trying my damnedest not to scream. Dad was milling around in the next room, Andy was hidden away out of sight somewhere, still stewing from the night before. Whatever this secret was, it seemed to be mine and mine alone.
It all started there, but it ended several days later, and in between were chances, opportunities for me to share the burden with someone else, to get help. Who knows what might have happened if I had. But once my heart stopped pounding, I jumped up and quietly shut the playroom door.
I’m not sure how long it took for me to work up the nerve to rewind the footage and watch it again, but it was long enough for me to convince myself that I had been mistaken. The door wasn’t open, it was just the jittery beat of the video. The dark shape was just a shadow, Memphis probably. And that hand. It was Andy’s of course. It had to be. He had just sneaked back in after the coast had cleared to snatch the doll as a bit of vengeance against me.
And then, after watching it again, all attempts to rationalize what I had seen flew out the window. The door was open. The shadow was something solid, something real. And those fingers, those gaunt, bony things, like Halloween decorations, they were painfully real. I stopped the tape and popped it out of the side of the camera before slipping it into my pocket. I knew why I was afraid, because someone had somehow broken into my house last night, but I couldn’t say why I was so secretive about it. This entire scenario felt as if it had somehow sprung from me, like the slap across my brother’s innocently laughing face had been the catalyst that started… well, whatever was happening here.
As shocking as it was on the second viewing, I was able to catch the rest of the scene before losing it. That’s when I noticed the dark shape slipping out once again, quick and silent. Then the door slowly sliding shut. A moment later, the latch slid back into place, locking the door behind it. Once more, I ran the tape back, realizing that I had never noticed the latch the first go-round, but there it was. Seconds before the door began to open, the latch flipped and slid out of place.
Immediately, I went back into the den, where it happened. I needed to see it for myself, to try to process what the hell was going on. I walked in silently, careful not to touch anything, struck by the odd feeling that whatever had let itself in and out of the house had somehow infected the place. I snatched up one of the flashlights we had used for our show the night before and peered at the walls, searching for… what exactly? A trail of slime? Bits of hair? Fingerprints?
I found nothing at all, so I turned to the door, flipping the latch and sliding it open with my shirttail, still unable to touch it. I checked the handle, the walls, the concrete-and-brick porch, the eaves hanging over my head. In each case, I found nothing more interesting than bird shit and old chewed-up bubblegum I had spit out. I glanced through the murky glass and saw Memphis peering at me.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” I asked when I walked back in.
He purred and nudged my leg, but he didn’t have any more answers than I did. I watched the video three more times before I finally worked up the nerve to tap on Andy’s bedroom door. It was a little after noon, and depending on the day, he might not even be up yet, but the familiar sound of his Nintendo told me he was wide awake. I tapped. Waited. Tapped again. Knocked. Banged my fist.
“What?” he snapped as the door flew open.
The room behind him was a dark pool, somewhere forbidden, the realm of the reclusive teenager. I peeked over his shoulder and he narrowed the door to a crack.
“I said, ‘What do you want?’”
“Nothing,” I spit back. “What’s up your ass?”
Already off to a rough start, even though it was intended to be an apology. I’ve never been much for saying I’m sorry though, and Andy knew it.
“Leave me alone,” he said before slamming the door in my face.
“Andy… jeez. I’m sorry,” I said to the closed door. “I lost my temper. You know how I am about stuff.”
I waited, but the sound of his game being unpaused was the only response I got. The door was locked, but I knew how to pick it. He didn’t know that I knew, and I’d been saving that particular surprise for a very special occasion. I couldn’t imagine there being a bigger reason than this.
“What are you playing?” I asked as I sat down on the bed.
“Get the hell out of my room,” he demanded.
“Wait. Please, just listen. I’m sorry I acted like a butthole last night, but there’s something I need to show you. Something I have to show you.”
In the time it took to convince him and run back the tape yet again, I was starting to feel silly. Now that I had an audience, I’d see that it really wasn’t as terrifying as I thought it was. It simply couldn’t be. Then the tape started, and I felt my heart pounding in my ears, felt my lungs refusing to fill up, a reminder of the asthma attacks I’d had when I was five.
“So, what am I looking at?” he asked.
“Watch,” I whispered, wanting to turn away.
The latch. The door. The shape. The dark hand.
When I finally glanced back up into Andy’s face, it took a minute to register what I was really seeing. Some sort of embarrassed, stoic fear hidden there. Maybe outright terror. So why did he also look so mad?
“Well?” I said finally, still staring at him. “It wasn’t you, was it?”
“Me?” he barked. “You slap me in front of your dumbass friend, then you stage this bullshit, and you have the nerve to ask if it was me?”
“But I didn’t… I mean, I wasn’t even…”
He wanted to hit me. I could tell that much by the way his fists were white around the edges. He didn’t hit me though. Instead, without a word, he dropped to one knee next to the camera, popped open the case, drew out the tape, and threw it as hard as he could against the wall. It exploded in a fan of plastic bits, leaving a hole in the drywall the size of a nickel. I was frozen, my eyes and mouth gaping as the evidence shattered in front of me. Andy’s abrupt turn into violence was so sudden, so unexpected, I could barely speak, my words falling out in a strained whine.
“Why would you—”
“Get the fuck out of my room!” he screamed.
The rest was a blur. Dad was there, stomping his foot, demanding answers about the wall and the screams. I lied. I told him half a dozen stories about how Andy was picking on us the night before, about how he broke Sallie’s tape just to be mean, and how all I wanted to do was spend time in his room. In between screams, Dad listened, fussed, told Andy he should know better, that he was the bigger brother, that it was his responsibility to be the grownup. I watched it all, stewing and self-righteous, but not really triumphant. The wedge between me and my brother was only growing wider by the day, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I actually needed him. To this day, I don’t know why my natural inclination was to turn on him at the first sign of trouble.