Daddo thinks I’m sle eping. He sits on the end of my bed and he’s talking to me but really he’s talking to himself. It’s late. Everybody’s left the party. I don’t know where Mommy is. And I don’t want Daddo to leave my room. Marsha saw Other Mommy. What does that mean? Can anybody see her? First she was just in my closet. Then she crawled to my bed. Then she sat beside me. Then she was outside the house. And now someone else saw her too. I saw Lois Anthony talking to Marsha in the driveway when everyone was leaving. Marsha was sitting in her car with the window down. The person driving the car looked like he really wanted to go and then they finally left. Lois Anthony looked back at our house and to my bedroom window and I ducked and Kelvin said, You spying over there? He was making a joke but I could tell he was scared about what happened downstairs. I didn’t know if it was Marsha screaming or me or maybe Kelvin saw Other Mommy too. He didn’t go near the closet as he helped me to bed. But Kelvin is gone now too. Maybe I should sle ep in here tonight, Daddo says. Yeah, why not. You must be a little shaken up. I guess I am too. I can tell when he’s looking at me and when he’s not. My eyes are closed. But I can tell. He’s looking at me. You know, Daddo says, a lot of people have stories like yours. Like the... mommy thing you’ve talked about a couple times. He doesn’t say Other Mommy. Is he upset? I don’t like that idea. I don’t like it at all. I’ve got something too, he says. But I’m not talking about that right now because who needs it? God, I’m so stoned. He definitely thinks I’m sle eping. Where’s Mommy? Downstairs? Ah, Bela. It’s all so different, you know? How you think things are gonna be and how they end up being. I know that sounds like something a stoner would say, but I’m not claiming to be much more than that. Am I happy? Yes. Yeah. Sure I am. But I’m also sad. Does that make sense?
Sometimes I feel like it’s my life’s mission to make sure you don’t get the second half of that, only the first. I’m sure your grandparents wanted me to grow up to be happy, full stop, no sadness. But it’s not quite like that. Adulthood. It’s not that it’s bad, or dark, or terrible. Jesus, no. In fact it’s incredible. Sometimes I think of this one kid, Quinn Dole, from high school. Poor guy wrapped his car around a tree late at night when we were all seventeen and he died and every time I experience something new, I think how he missed out on that. Even on the day you were born. I swear. In the hospital. Your mom was in so much pain and you come popping out and everyone’s relieved and the doctor says you look great and Mommy is gonna be great and who do I think of? Quinn Dole. I think of his huge Adam’s apple and his spiky black hair and the way his teeth lit up his face when he smiled and I remembered him running, of all things, up the hall one day, when he was late for class, and how his arms and legs looked all disconnected like nothing was working together in concert. How’s that for a word there, huh? Concert. Yeah, I’m stoned. You asle ep? Yeah, you’re asle ep. Daddo stands up, walks to my dresser, grabs his drink, sits back down on the bed. He sits down kinda hard and I have to try hard to ke ep my eyes shut. But it’s not so much the big events Quinn is missing out on. It’s not graduation and first love, real love, and college, and shitty jobs, and dumb decisions. It’s not marriage and a kid and buying your first house, though he was present in my head for all those things, too, right? Still... it’s the feeling of life. The experience of aging and living. That’s what Quinn Dole is missing right now. It’s not the kid, it’s your reaction to the kid. It’s me not sle eping for the first year you were alive, Bela. It’s the constant worrying about you and what that does to a parent. You know what I mean? It’s growth and change, by way of experience, and that’s what Quinn Dole is missing right now. It’s not love... it’s falling in love and how it literally changes who you are. Hey, Bela, you know my friend Mark? Daddo drinks. The ice makes a clinky sound. So get this. Mark takes a photo of himself every day. Did you know that? He’s done it for a really long time now. Years. We’re talking pre- cellphone stuff here, but also with his cellphone now too. Mark has thousands of pics of himself. I guess everybody does that nowadays, but I think you know what I mean. And in case you don’t: Mark is documenting the changes in himself. And that’s cool. And we talk about it. But at the same time, I don’t know. I’m less interested in the changes on the outside, you know? I lose or gain some weight? I grow my hair out or lose it all? Who cares, right? What I wish I had documented was the inner change. That’s the stuff Quinn Dole is missing right now. How amazing would it be to check back ten years ago, five, even just one. I guess artists would understand. Hey, Bela? You asle ep? Did Marsha really see what you said you saw? Daddo drinks. He’s quiet now. I listen for creaking. Noises other than him or me. Where’s Mommy? Did she leave? Is she with that man from the hall? Did she drive him home? Jesus Christ, Daddo says. That scream of Marsha’s. He stands up. I peek. I thought he’d be standing above my bed, looking back down at me. I was ready to say I’m awake again. To ke ep him talking. To ke ep him here. But his back is to me and he’s facing the closet. If there is anything in this house, Daddo says, get out. Now. I open my eyes wider. I look to the closet.
Go somewhere else, Daddo says with his back to me still. If there are such things as ghosts, go somewhere else and be one there. This house doesn’t want you. We’re happy here. I don’t want Daddo talking to the closet like this. I mean it, he says. Leave. Leave right now. He holds up his drink like he’s toasting the closet. He makes a click sound like he’s touching his glass to someone else’s. The closet doors creak open. Hey... I sit up. I can’t pretend to be asle ep anymore. Daddo st eps closer to the closet. It’s so dark in the room I can barely see him now. What do I do? Yell for him to stop? Kelvin? Ursula? He reaches out and closes the closet doors. He stands quiet for a long time and my eyes get used to the dark and I think Daddo is looking back at me from the closet and has been since he shut the door. You still asle ep, kiddo? he says. I don’t answer because my heart is beating too hard. I’m so scared, I can’t move. He looks to the closet again. He pulls out his phone and uses the flashlight. Ah, Daddo says. A hinge is loose. He laughs. I’ll fix you in the morning. But still... he doesn’t walk away. He just stands there. Is he looking at the hinge? Is he looking at me? Know what? he says. Screw it. I’m gonna fix this right now. He leaves my bedroom and goes out into the hall. There’s a nightlight there because of me. I stare at the closet. She’s gonna come out. I feel like I know she’s gonna come out. Don’t, I say. It’s hard to tell where the closet doors end and the walls begin. Daddo st eps into the room with a screwdriver in his hand. Okay, naughty closet hinge, Daddo says. Let’s fix you up so you don’t scare Bela anymore. I watch him as he fixes it. I think of him locking her in the closet and I like the thought of that. All right, Daddo says. That should be good. He st eps back but still doesn’t leave.
He ke eps quiet for a time. Just facing the closet. I think of carnations. Flowers. And how I must’ve misheard Other Mommy. Daddo says, You know, Bela, fear is a super interesting thing. If you think about it, every time you’ve ever been scared in your life so far, you’ve also survived whatever you were scared of. Right? You’ve literally gotten through everything you thought you might not. Everything you thought you weren’t strong enough to get through... you got through it. Or else you wouldn’t be here to know you got through it. Right? And I’m telling you, Bela, that’s the stuff Quinn Dole is missing out on right now. That’s the feeling of being alive. Daddo, I say. I scared him, I think. Bela. What? Is reincarnation bad? He carries his drink back to the bed. I’m glad he’s farther from the closet now. Bad? he says. No. Reincarnation is... one of the most beautiful things we’ve ever come up with, I think. I think of Other Mommy telling me about it. About how it brings friends back to life. Can I go into your heart? Maybe Quinn Dole had reincarnation, I say. Daddo sips his drink. So you were awake. You do that often? Sit and listen to Mommy and me when we think you’re asle ep? I don’t answer. Don’t worry if you do, Daddo says. I woulda done the same as a kid. How else are you gonna hear about the real world? He breathes in de ep like he’s thinking. But who needs the real world, right? he says. And I like that idea. What idea? That Quinn Dole was reincarnated. But where would the other person’s body go? I ask. What do you mean? I don’t know what I mean. If Quinn came back in someone else’s body... where would that person go? I... well... I... I don’t think it works that way. But maybe it does? Daddo laughs. But he’s eyeing me closely. Is this about... you know, he says. Maybe, I say.
Wanna tell me more? Daddo says. The closet doors creak open. Daddo stands up fast and goes right to the closet and closes it again. Then he takes the chair from my desk and puts it against the doors and he says, No more out of you! He’s breathing hard and the ice in his glass clinks as he takes another drink. Then he sets his glass on my desk and walks over to my bed. Slide over, kid, Bela, daughter of mine. I slide over. Is Mommy home? Let’s talk more about reincarnation and your mother tomorrow, he says. He sits down hard on my bed and falls back onto one of my pillows. Quinn Dole will never know what it feels like to drink too much and pass out in your kid’s bed, he says. Then he’s asle ep. And snoring so loud I can’t tell if anything in the house creaks. But I’m still thinking about reincarnation. And where one person goes if another person takes their body. Other Mommy told me she wants inside my body. She told me I would go where she comes from. We would trade places. Like friends. Trading. Sharing. I’d be helping her. Like friends do. Weren’t we friends before? I think we used to laugh together. But now I don’t know if I’m remembering that right. Maybe it was just me who used to laugh. And Other Mommy just watched. Please don’t come out, I say. I watch the closet doors in the dark. Daddo snores next to me. Don’t get any closer, I say. Please. No closer. But I feel wrong. Bad. Like I’m telling Pester not to want to go outside. But Pester was just a cat. Bela... Did I just hear my name? Is she talking to me from inside the closet? I slide closer to Daddo. I close my eyes. I pretend I’m sle eping.
Maybe if I pretend to sle ep, it’ll actually come true. No closer, I say again. And I ke ep saying it. Like how people count she ep. Eyes closed. Next to Daddo. No closer, no closer, please, no close—