It’s hard for me to explain this to you, Daddo says.
We’re sitting on a bench outside a big church.
Mommy and Grandma are inside talking to someone who maybe can help.
Because no matter how smart you are, you’re still a kid. And so you’ve only lived so long, and so you don’t have a
whole life of not experiencing what we’re going through. And so when I say someone doesn’t actually know how
they’re going to react to something like this until they actually have to, that no amount of stories could possibly
pr epare a person for how they’d really feel if they actually saw what your mom saw the other night, I’m talking
about people who have already lived a pretty long time without seeing something like that. See what I mean?
When you’re my age, a certain... reality takes root. I don’t mean that I’m set in my ways. I pride myself on not
being set. But no matter how freewheeling you are, something like what she saw, well... Daddo’s been talking like
this since Mommy and Grandma went inside.
Are they getting help? Is it working?
Daddo turns to look at the big brown church door.
What can anyone do? he says. What can a priest do about this thing?
He takes my chin in his hand.
I think it’s time you stop calling it what you call it, he says. Your mom doesn’t like it.
He lets go and he stands up.
He walks up the sidewalk a few st eps, then back a few st eps. Pacing. He ke eps looking to the church door, wanting
it to open, wanting Mommy and Grandma to come out with help.
What will the priest do? I ask.
Bela... I’m not sure.
He sits down with me on the bench again.
I’m so sorry this is happening, he says.
Me too, Daddo.
Then I start crying.
No, no, he says. One day this will all be something we got through.
One day, the problems you have now will be like a legend in your life. I don’t know a single person who got stuck
in the same problem for the rest of their life. Do you know what I mean, Bela?
Yeah, I say.
Okay, good. I love you.
I love you too.
The church door opens and Mommy and Grandma come down the stone st eps toward us.
They don’t look happy.
They won’t do it, Mommy says.
Won’t even come to the house?
They don’t believe any of it, Grandma says.
And even if they did, Mommy says, they say they’d need proof. And a lot of it too. I said, Hey, how about the
word of three adult witnesses and they started asking us questions as if to check our sanity. Do we use drugs.
How religious are we. Is there anything we’re zealous about.
O, come on, Daddo says.
They weren’t very nice, Grandma says.
They told us to go to the police, Mommy says.
And you told them we already did?
I did. Russ... What?
We have to kill it.
Daddo shakes his head like Mommy is crazy but then looks at her like she’s not.
How? he asks.
I don’t know. But if we want to get on with our lives, we have to kill it ourselves.
But... how?
It doesn’t matter where we go, Mommy says like she didn’t hear Daddo’s question. For crying out loud, she saw it
in the park, Russ.
They go quiet then.
But how? I ask.
I think of the face Other Mommy makes when I don’t answer her question.
What would it look like if I tried to hurt her?
With a gun? I ask.
Don’t say that, Daddo says. Jesus, Bela.
Well, Grandma says, what else are we talking about here?
We haven’t even tried shoving it, Mommy says.
She looks out across the street like she’s thinking about doing that.
The church door opens and two men in black walk down the st eps and when they get to the bottom they see me
and then they look at Mommy like they’re about to say something to her.
Then they look at each other and walk away and we can hear their shoes on the sidewalk, going away from us until
we can’t see them anymore.
Those were the priests, I know.
And that was the sound they make, walking away from us.
It sounded like the whole world walked away from us. Like the whole world just told us we have to figure this out
on our own.
I try to imagine how to hurt Other Mommy.
I don’t like thinking about it.
But I don’t stop either.
I think.
How.
How can I help... And which way is worse?
Hurting her... Or helping?