The Secrets We Keep(20)

For the last few days, it had seemed like every memory I had of us as kids, every mundane detail consumed me. It was as if I was afraid that if I didn’t catalogue everything from the exact date we got braces to the color of her toothbrush, then it would be lost, tiny pieces of her forgotten forever. I couldn’t let that happen.

“Here, I brought this for you.” I held a small flashlight in my hand. It was Alex’s. He had used it in the hospital to study at night when I was sleeping. I’d taken it before I left, intent on burying it with Maddy.

“I meant to put it in the casket, but it was already closed,” I said as I laid it on top of the dirt mound. I quickly swiped at the tears streaming down my cheeks, but it was no use. “Remember how we used to play hide-and-seek at Grandma’s house?” I thought of the cobwebbed basement and dingy attic our cousins were always hiding in. We played together on the holidays as Mom did the dishes and Dad caught up with siblings he only saw twice a year.

When we were five, I hid in the laundry room closet and Maddy was in Grandma’s dryer. She had the door cracked open enough so she could see, but I doubted that would give her away. No one ever thought to check the dryer.

I heard my cousin Jake laughing, that annoying cackle that meant he was about to do something mean. But that didn’t surprise me; he was always mean. The sound got louder, and I tensed as I waited for him to find me. But it wasn’t me he was after, it was Maddy.

Her cry sent me barreling out of the closet, fists balled and ready to hit Jake. He’d found her, but instead of yelling it to the rest of us, he’d kicked the dryer door shut and was pressing his entire weight against it, closing her in. It wasn’t the small, cramped space that scared Maddy. It was the dark. Maddy was deathly afraid of the dark. Still was.

“Let her out,” I demanded. She was banging on the door, her cries tearing through my heart.

“Make me,” he taunted, and leaned further into the door, blocking my path to Maddy.

She’d stopped sobbing by then, her cries dissolving into muffled whimpers as she pleaded with Jake to open the door. I went to move around him, to push him out of the way and get to Maddy, but Jake was older and seemed twice my size. He shoved me hard, and I fell backward onto the tile floor.

I hit the closet-door handle on the way down. No blood or anything, but I remembered the bump and, later, Mom asking me a million questions like, was I tired and did I feel sick. Funny, I could still almost feel it—the pain that is, like my mind was triggering my body to recall every detail I could.

“I hate you,” I had yelled at Jake as I scrambled to my feet. That was my sister … that was a part of me he had trapped in there.

“Ooh … Ella hates me. I’m sooo scared now,” he teased back.

“Let her out or I’ll get my mom.”

“Gonna run to tattle to your mommy? What’s the matter, Ella? Your sister’s afraid of the dark?”

He knew she was. That’s why he always hid in the attic. That’s why he always won.

I may have only been five, but I had on dress shoes, hard patent-leather ones. And they were pointy at that. I was going for his knee, but my balance was off and I was angry, so angry that my foot flew higher.

Jake fell sideways to the ground and curled up in a ball, his face pale and his eyes watering. The sound that came out of his mouth was awful—low, guttural, and filled with pain. But now it was my turn to taunt him, my chance to remind him not to mess with Maddy. “Maddy is my sister,” I said. “You leave her alone.”

Maddy tumbled from the dryer and ran into my arms. Her face was red and blotchy, and she was gasping through her tears.

“Mom!” Jake yelled from the bathroom floor.

“Who’s the baby now?” I teased. “Look who’s calling his mommy for help now.”

My aunt Helen came running up the stairs, my mom a few steps behind. Aunt Helen dropped to the floor, looking for some wound to soothe on her precious Jake. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t find the strength through his pain to tell her what I’d done.

“What happened?” Mom asked.

“Ella … kicked me … in … the balls,” Jake rasped out, and Maddy giggled. Her giggle brought a quick smile to my face. If she was laughing, then it meant she was okay.

“Isabella Anne Lawton—” my mom started in, but I cut her off. I wasn’t going to take the blame. Jake had it coming.

“He locked Maddy in the dryer and wouldn’t let her out!”

Jake got hauled home without dessert, and I couldn’t watch TV that night. Maddy … well, getting stuck in the dryer was punishment enough for her giggling as Jake rolled around on the floor, groaning in pain. Needless to say, Jake was never much interested in playing hide-and-seek with us after that Thanksgiving. In fact, he’d never much wanted to have anything to do with us since then. Fine by me. It was twelve years later and I still wasn’t ready to forgive him.

“You think Jake is still bent out of shape about the dryer incident?” I joked as I toyed with the small thread that had come loose from the hem of my dress. I knew full well he was away at college, but the thought of him still being afraid of me and my pointy shoes brought a little bit of happiness to an otherwise sucky day. “Maybe that’s why he didn’t come to the burial? Well, anyway, I brought you a flashlight. I know it’s probably dark in…”