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Show in my father's house/ 103 This time, my fear did not go away. For days I didn't leave my mother's side. Everywhere she went, I was close on her heels, compulsed to follow her to the basement -- which I hated for the black widow spiders Danny had shown me, tangling sticky disordered webs in the windows of the washroom -- and up the stairs again with loads of laundry, me stumbling to get ahead of her so that an FBI agent, or stern-faced matron would not nab me from the shadows which loomed behind. When my mother went into the bathroom I waited outside with my back pressed against the door, watching for intruders until each creak of the house became a warning and I cried for her to let me in. When she lay down for a nap, I would not let her sleep, afraid they would kidnap me without her knowledge and I would be gone forever. Sometimes she crept into the linen closet, saying, "I have to get some sheets. I'll just be a minute." Then she closed the door and through the keyhole I overhead the soft sounds of her weeping. The days after the "scare" passed and my little brother grew. Still, my mother did not get well. Every other day, she went with my father and Aunt Helga to the office and her treatments sometimes lasted all morning. I sat in the waiting room, looking at magazines or the frayed Bible Stories book. If no other patients were in the office, my father led me to the inner rooms where I watched him stack medicines and adjust his naturo- |