Jack & Jill by Kealan Patrick Burke Read Free Book Online Page B

trying to frighten me by dressing in the costume he wore in my nightmares didn't hold water. For one, I'd given him no details about the nightmare. For another, I hadn't heard him descend the stairs. Even forgetting those irrefutable facts, what could he possibly hope to gain by dressing as the very creature I had accused him of being?
    I finish peeing and eschew ed patting myself dry or washing my hands in favor of yanking up my pants and hurrying to the door. As I fastened the button on my jeans, his voice stopped me cold.
    "Open the door , baby...I want to see..."
    My throat went dry. After a moment spared to question the wisdom of what I was going to do, I flipped the lock on the door, grabbed the handle and yanked it open. No more running , I told myself, teeth clenched so hard they made my jaws ache. No more fear. This ends now, and he's given me the perfect opening to hit him, hurt him, put him down for good.
    But there was no one there. I found myself looking, not upon my father in his pathetic nightmare costume, but across an empty hall at the closet door under the stairs, a sanctuary once upon a time. There was not a sound but for the rain.
    Furious, I stalk ed down the hall and into the living room, my mouth already open and flooding with invectives.
    The living room wa s empty.
    How could he have hidden so fast? My father was old, so unless he'd stashed himself in the closet in record time, there was no way he could have moved away from the door without me seeing him.
    A quick check of the closet revealed nothing but old coats, umbrellas, muddy boots, and an old vacuum cleaner.
    Confused, I mad e my way upstairs, every step creaking beneath my feet.
    Up here the atmosphere changed from one of neglect to sadness. There were three doors in this hallway, all but one of them closed. The first was my bedroom, and here I stopped. On the wood surface of the door I could still see the adhesive residue where once had hung a yellow vinyl sign that read: STOP: NO BOYS ALLOWED, a simple, innocent message, but one that might have altered the course of my life had it been heeded. My hand found the door knob, and there it lingered. What was there to be seen beyond this door? Had bitterness led my father to strip it bare, or had sick love forced him to preserve it? And what further impact did I think seeing the room would have on me, no matter what its state? Nothing would change if I looked; even less would change if I didn't. At length, I removed my hand, content to let the question go unanswered.
    The next room wa s John's, and this door I did open.
    I t was almost as it had been the day he'd died. As in the rest of the house, the colors had faded and dust covered everything, but his bed, a mattress nestled in a red racing car frame, was still there, as were his toys. Posters of Transformers , Spider-Man , and The Incredible Hulk covered the walls. I recalled a lot of fun times spent in here, helping John with homework, reading, or engaging in the ultimate standoff between my Barbie Dolls and his G.I. Joes, the battles made fairer by the mutually agreed upon stipulation that Barbie be armed with some of the military man's cache. Thus, it was not unusual to have Barbie doing a stiff-legged victory dance while G.I. Joe lay spread-eagled on the floor after being blown to bits by a grenade she'd kept stashed down her panties.
    Of course, I remember ed the bad times too, for it was not possible to allow one without the other following close behind. And so I saw myself holding John as he wept, neither of us speaking, afraid to say the words aloud, to ask questions we knew no one our age could possibly answer, foremost among them always: Why?
    As I did not yet have an answer to give my brother's ghost, I closed the door and moved on.
    My father's door was open, and he wa s there, sitting on the bed. No costume, no plastic bag, no lascivious leer. He was dressed just as he'd been when he'd admitted me into the house, and he was