OLD MONSTERS
I WENT DOWN INTO the storage unit in the basement and rifled through the stacks of plastic bins full of various holiday decorations and pulled out the one with all the Halloween stuff. I brought it upstairs and started taking the contents out, one by one. Old monster costumes and face paints, plastic pumpkin baskets for trick-or-treating, bundles of fake white spiderwebs and little black spiders.
Callie walks into the room, regarding the pile of stuff with contempt.
“Hey,” I say to her, doing my best to sound optimistic, doing my best to mend whatever it is between the two of us that keeps on breaking over and over. “I thought maybe it would be fun to go out this year. What do you think?”
“I’m twelve.” She pauses. “Not two.”
“What are you talking about? Halloween’s your favorite.”
“Oh, okay. If you say so.” Then she walks into the kitchen and says, almost as if she doesn’t care whether I hear her or not, “I must be wrong, then.”
“Okay,” I mutter to myself as I start piling all the stuff back into the box—the witch costume from second grade, the devil one from fourth, Callie’s Barbie princess one from kindergarten, a rubbery decayed-flesh mask from a zombie ensemble, the eye patch from when Aaron was a pirate. Then I see something I almost forgot about. There, at the very bottom, bundled in a heap. My homemade Peter Pan costume from sixth grade.
Everyone was into fairies that year—it was all about Tinker Bell. But I wanted to be Peter Pan. So I asked Mom if we could make my costume that year. It was one of the few crafty things Mom and I ever did together. She wasn’t that good at sewing and neither was I, but together we were really proud of this “project,” as she called it.
Green leggings and a green leotard—those were easy enough to come by. But Mom made the skirt, layers of different shades of green fabric, sewn together so they looked like strips of leaves and whatever other greenery we imagined might be appropriate for a girl version of Peter Pan. And then, of course, the signature hat with a feather—Mom made that, too. And my favorite part: the shadow.
Mom bought a cheap black sheet and laid it out on the living room floor. She had me lie down on top of it with my arms and legs spread out, and she drew the outline of my body in chalk. Then she cut it out and sewed a strand of ribbon into the neck so I could wear it on my back like a cape, my shadow trailing behind me. I remember telling her about how Aaron and I would run as fast as we could at the park, checking behind us to see if our shadows could keep up.
She threw her head back and laughed as we sat on the floor, cutting out my shape on the sheet. She rarely ever laughed like that, so that’s probably why I remember it so well. That was the year Dad decided I was too old to dress up for Halloween. I’m not sure why he decided, right then, when I was already in the stupid costume and ready to leave with Callie, that this was suddenly a new rule. I remember him making me go back into our bedroom and change into regular clothes.
As I looked at myself in the mirror one last time, I decided it was probably my turn anyway. Maybe, I thought, there was a finite amount of meanness in him, and if he took some of it out on me every once in a while, then maybe there would be less for Mom, less for Aaron. So I went out with Callie that Halloween, dressed as myself, and I didn’t complain.
Almost as if Mom can sense how much I’m missing her right now, the phone rings—the landline. And no one ever calls the landline—the only reason we have it is for her phone calls. I trip over the Halloween stuff to reach it in time. I answer, and it’s the recording that always comes on. I press one to accept the charges.
“Mom?”
“Brooke, I’m here,” she says, her voice so much stronger than the last time we spoke.
“You sound good,” I say.
“Well, I’ve been feeling better lately.”
“Good,” I tell her. “I can tell.”
“How are you doing?” she asks.
“I’m good. Pretty good, I guess. I mean, we miss you. I was just thinking about you.” She’s so quiet I start to think I’ve lost her. “Mom? Hello?”
“I’m still here.” She pauses. “Brooke, I have something I want to tell you.”
“Okay?”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think in here over these past few months,” she begins. “And I don’t think I’ve been fair to you kids—to you especially.” Her voice shakes as she tries to talk louder. “It all finally made sense to me.”
“What . . . what did?”
“I look at you, and I see you trying to take care of things and be responsible”—her voice catches—“trying to take care of me. I’ve put too much on you. I always have, and that’s not right.”
“Mom, you know I don’t feel that way,” I tell her, but that’s not the truth.
“That’s exactly what my mother did to me. My whole life was taking care of her. And I hated her for that, Brooke. I don’t want you to hate me. And I certainly don’t want you to be me. And that’s what I see when I look at you. I see you turning into me, and it scares the hell out of me.”
I keep opening my mouth to interrupt her, to argue with her, but I don’t know what to say. I want to tell her all the ways she’s wrong. I want to tell her to take it all back right now.
“Brooke, I want you to stay away from here from now on.”
“What? No, Mom—”
“I mean it. I don’t want you to visit me. You see me here, like this, and you think you have to fix this for me, but you can’t. I don’t want you to take care of me anymore. I’m going to take care of myself now. All right?”
“No,” I repeat. “I need to see you, Mom,” I tell her.
“Just until everything is settled. I need you to stay away. For you, and for me, too. I love you. That’s why I’m saying this.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. No,” I repeat, trying to get her to hear me. But she doesn’t. “Mom?” I try again. “Mom!”
“I have to go now. I love you.”
“Mom, don’t hang—”
But it’s too late. She did. She hung up.