The Last House on Needless Street(47)

‘You’re terrible,’ Mommy says. It sounds like a compliment and a judgement at the same time. I think about how old twenty-five is, and then how old the terrier lady is. Gross. She must be almost forty.

‘Sylvia thinks so too,’ the terrier lady says. She sounds sad, suddenly. ‘I never thought my daughter would grow up to be so judgemental. She was the sweetest baby.’

‘I am very lucky with Teddy,’ Mommy says, and I am filled with love for her. ‘He is always respectful.’

I wonder where Daddy is, and then I remember. Daddy left because I punched him in the head. I recall the crack of the bone against my knuckles, and look of the bruises on my hand. It is one of the many times I have been grateful that I do not feel pain. He felt it. I know that Daddy deserved it, but I have to search for the reasons why. It comes back to me in flashes. I had to hit him because he was yelling at Mommy. Calling her bad names, saying she was insane.

‘Tsk,’ Mommy says, breaking into my thoughts. I look up at her, grateful that she is there. ‘You have cut yourself on that knife, Teddy.’

I start and put the knife back in the drawer. I didn’t remember taking it out. ‘It’s fine, Mommy.’

‘Don’t take risks with your health,’ she says. ‘It needs disinfecting, and a couple stitches. I’ll get my kit.’

No, that didn’t happen then. I am in the wrong memory, now. Never call a woman insane. The feel of Mommy’s cool hands on my face and the sappy green scent of the woods in the springtime. No, that is not right, either. I try to find the thread of that day. I am almost panting with frustration. There was something important about it. But it is gone.



The second time Mommy brought me to the forest was for Snowball the mouse. I was in the living room, crying over the cage. What was left of him lay gleaming in a corner. The sawdust was brown and hung together in clumps. A lot of blood in such a small thing. I remember the taste of snot and fear. I clutched my yellow blanket to my face and it was soaking wet; the blue butterflies glistened with sadness.

I looked up and there she was in the doorway, watching me in silence. She was wearing her blue dress, the floating one she called her tea dress. I didn’t know what to do. How could I explain?

‘Don’t look at me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t do it.’

‘Yes, you did.’

I screamed and seized the Russian doll from the mantelpiece. I threw it at her. Tiny dolls flew in every direction. They all missed her head. They splintered on the wall behind. I screamed again and picked up the music box. But I was frightened of the bad feelings writhing through me. I let the box fall to the floor. It broke with a deep twang.

‘Look what you have done.’ She was calm. ‘You take everything from me, Theodore. Take, take, take. Are you quite finished?’

I nodded.

‘Get a shoebox from my closet,’ she said. ‘Take the shoes out first. Then dump everything from the cage into the box.’ It was good that she gave exact instructions. I needed them, I couldn’t think. My brain was lit up with shame and excitement both. Poor Snowball. But I had found a deep and secret thing.

I carried the shoebox in one careful hand. Mommy held the other. She pulled me along, not unkindly. ‘Quickly now,’ she said. Out the front door, down the street.

‘You didn’t lock it,’ I said. ‘What if someone goes into the house? What if they steal things?’

‘Let them,’ she said. ‘Only you and I matter.’

What about Daddy? I thought, but did not say.

When we reached the gate to the woods I pulled back. ‘I don’t want to go in there.’ I started to cry again. ‘I’m afraid of the trees.’ I remembered what had happened with the little wooden cat. What would I be asked to leave behind, today? Maybe Mommy would have to stay and I would be forced to return alone. That was the worst idea.

‘You don’t need to be afraid, Teddy,’ she said. ‘You are more frightening than anything that lives in these woods. Besides, you will feel better out of the heat.’ She squeezed my hand. In her other hand she held her gardening trowel, the one with the pink handle.

We followed the path, which was a leopard skin of light and shade. She was right, I did feel better here, under the cool trees. I was still sorry, though. The mouse had been so little and I knew that we owe kindness to little things. So I cried again.

We reached a glade lined with boulders and silver trees like bolts of water or light. I knew, as soon as I stepped into that circle, that something would happen here. This was a place of transformation, where the wall between worlds was thin. I could feel it.

Mommy dug a hole with her pink trowel in a patch of sunshine, and we buried what was left of the mouse. The bones were picked clean; they shone almost translucent against the young grass. As the rich earth fell on top of the shoebox, covering it, something happened. I saw that what had been just a mouse was changed. Its remains became precious and powerful. It was part of death and of the earth now. It had become a god.

She sat and patted the earth beside her. I remember the scent of sap and her hands as she cradled my face. It must have been spring. ‘You think I am hard on you,’ she said. ‘You don’t like it that I have rules, and remind you of the reality of things. That I take care of your health, and don’t let you keep pets or eat hot dogs like American boys, that we cannot afford doctors and I sew up your cuts myself. And I do all this anyway, despite your complaints. I take care of your health because it is my duty. As I care for your body I must also tend your mind. We have discovered today that you have a sickness, there.