Maybe it’s the discomfort of being where we are or the silence of the still and haunted house. But he scoffs like we are joking about on the grass, not looking through an old box of trinkets from when I lived with my monster of a father.
When I lift the next item out, another tear drips down my cheek, leaving a streak. “A picture of me and my mom.”
He takes it, inspecting it. “Ya look like her.”
The very bottom of the box has a note. I lift it out, seeing instantly it’s my handwriting. Come and find me, peeping Sam!
“What’s that?”
I hand it to him, letting him try to decipher it. “I wrote that.”
He nods. “I can see that. Why would ya, though?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.” I lean forward, glancing into the hole again, certain there must be more.
“Well, that’s fucking mysterious. Why is everything with ya a fucking puzzle? Why didn’t ya just write everything down before he fucking erased your damned mind?”
“I think I must have known someone was watching me.” A scowl builds on my face. “And stop cussing so much. It makes me uncomfortable, how much you swear.”
His jaw drops. He shakes his head. “Well, now I’ve heard it all.”
Ignoring him and drumming my fingers along the wooden floor, I think about the sentence. “It could be an anagram. I mean, it’s sort of random to call me peeping Sam.” But saying the phrase brings with it a memory, exactly the way “plain Jane” did.
I close my eyes and suddenly it’s all there, filling my brain.
I’m small, very small, maybe eight at most. I chase a bunny under the house. Our house is on blocks like a trailer. Father’s been digging a basement. I creep under there, my fingers digging into the dank grass and weeds.
A noise fills the air. The sound of a whimper. I follow it to the front of the house where the steps are. There’s a hole in the floor, a notch out of the wood so small I haven’t seen it from the inside of the house. But here in the dark I can see light from inside the house shining down into the mucky dead grass. I lift my face, up into the floorboards, no longer interested in the bunny, and put my eye to the notch hole. Leona, my babysitter, is in there. I can’t see her face, but I know the sound of her voice. She’s making a funny sound, but whatever she’s doing, I can’t see it. Father’s back is to me. He’s got something in his hands. He mutters encouragements, repeating the word diddling like it means something. He sounds different with her, like he likes her.
I gag, trying desperately to snap out of the memory, but this one has me and it’s not letting go.
I watch my father’s back, completely confused about what is happening. They make sounds and do things I don’t see. Clothes ruffle and bodies shuffle, and the dark and light mix in the shadows and angles I can’t catch with my prying eyes. She gets up and walks to my bedroom. It’s then I catch a glimpse of the pretty clothes she has on. They’re from the bin I’m not allowed to touch.
Hurrying back to the backyard, I catch a glimpse of her changing in my bedroom from where I’m running through the field. He likes her better than me. It’s then I realize it.
From then on, when she or Michelle came over to babysit and I was sent outside to play, I would hurry under the house. There in the dark I would wait at the notch to watch the things they did for the camera. It was like a train wreck; I couldn’t look away. It made me feel funny. I knew it was wrong, all of it.
The memory fades into the fog and mud in my head as I blink tears from my eyes. “I lied about my father.”
He wraps himself around me, hugging me tightly to him. “No you didn’t. He was a monster.”
I nod. “He was, but he never molested me. He molested the girls who babysat me.” I am ashamed of myself. My body curls into his, desperate to hide from the truth, but I know that’s where the secrets are hidden. They’re buried in the places I am most ashamed to talk about or share. When I told myself to go back, this is the place I meant. I take his hand, pulling him to the living room where the notch in the floor still sits in the corner. “He did it all here, in this living room. He paid them to babysit, but he always stayed home. He paid them heaps of money to star in the shows.” My cheeks are bright red and my eyes are burning. “I watched through this hole from under the house. I never told anyone for a year. He did it all the time. The pictures and movies didn’t show faces clearly. No one could tell who the kid in the picture was, just that it was a kid.” I turn, looking at the fireplace. My feet move, even though my brain is screaming for them to stop. I reach for the brick I know will move, revealing the hiding place. When I pull it back, the papers from the floor are stuffed in there. The papers Derek showed me before. They have always been here. They never were in the folder or found by the police. One picture grabs at me from the stack. It’s a girl’s mouth with a cherry in it. A bitter smile owns my face as I recall Michelle teaching me to do it when she babysat me. I want to judge myself for the fact I’m ever so slightly excited that I didn’t learn the trick in a brothel somewhere.