my mom glued to the couch, I had free roam of the neighborhood. She didn’ t notice when I left our yard to visit Ricky, or when I climbed the chain link fence in our backyard, crossing over into the Exeter Graveyard. The thought of ghosts didn’ t scare me as much— I had real monsters to contend with.
Dinners were always tense. He got home from the hospital each evening and cooked us dinner while my mom nursed a beer or a funny-smelling iced tea on the couch. Our kitchen was tiny, and the round table was pushed against the wall. The back chair, my chair, was squashed between the table and the wall. I felt cornered enough sitting at a table directly across from him, but the wall at my back only added to the anxiety. I picked onions and peppers out of my eggs, my macaroni, and my rice, while he pounded on the table and thundered eat it. I tried one bite, and the audible crunch as I bit made me gag. I spit the food back on the plate, and only when he grabbed my arm and wrenched me from my seat did I realize exactly how poor of a choice I had made. I wrestled myself out of his grasp and thundered up the stairs, shutting the door behind me and locking it. I leaned against it, terrified that he would break it open.
He tried the doorknob once, then shoulder checked the door. The teardrop amethyst he wore in his left ear fell to the floor. I heard him sigh as blood thundered in my ears and my body quaked.
“ You want to be in your room? Fine. Stay in your room. Stay all fucking night!” Something rattled the doorknob, and I braced myself against it, terrified. His footsteps retreated. I listened to the crick, creak, crick of his feet on the stairs, heard his chair against the linoleum as he reseated himself at the table. Only when I heard the scraping of forks on plates did I unlock the door and try to pull it open.
It didn’ t open. I pulled, and the door came toward me a quarter inch before springing shut again. My heart, finally calm, picked up speed again— what had he done? I twisted the handle and pulled, tensing my muscles to hold the door open a crack and see what kept pulling it shut.
The linen closet door was next to my bedroom door in the hall, so close that if it was open, I would walk right into it. The closet was locked, and, hooked on the door handle was a bungee cord. The bright green-and-purple cord was wrapped once around the doorknob, and the length of the cord, pulled taut, stretched to my door. It reverberated each time I pulled.
I slowly let the door fall shut, then laid on the floor at the foot of my door. I pressed my face against the floor so I could stare out of the crack beneath the
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