The Skeletons Wash Their Hands Before Supper
When I was seven and you were five, you moved into my bedroom. They needed your room for the new baby. I don’t remember having any feelings about it—you spent all your time with me anyways. There was plenty of room for both of us.
We wanted bunk beds, but that option was never on the table. So, we slid your twin bed down the green carpet of the hallway and into the far corner of my bedroom. Now, it was our room.
Before you moved in, I made a twelve-foot-long clover chain and hung it from the ceiling beside my bed. We wove your Barrel-O-Monkeys into it and draped our new creation around the window frame like a strange, gaudy necklace. Your porcelain birthday dolls joined mine on the highest shelf, the first five of my brunettes now standing beside blonde twin sisters. Our closet was crammed with all the toys: my Easy Bake Oven and art supplies got cozy with your Lincoln Logs and doll clothes. Your Barney comforter clashed severely with the rainbow bedding I’d picked a couple of years earlier, but we didn’t mind conflating the two. Dad installed the folding bed rail you insisted on keeping for the safety of your dolls. Every night, you raised the rail to secure them in your bed while I rolled my eyes behind my chapter book.
The foot of my bed was in the doorway. On your first night, you told me that was good because I was stronger and could fight off robbers. Although I insisted that I wasn’t worried, I secretly checked the window locks behind my headboard every night.
Until the baby was born, we received excellent turn-down service from Mom and Dad. After my shower and your bath, we would read books in bed until one of them came to give us little glasses of water and turn off the lights. Then they would sit on the floor for a few minutes and offer prayers, stories, or songs.
We liked Dad’s nights the best because he told us “little boy stories” from his childhood. Our favorite was the one where he knocked out six baby teeth on a rock by jumping out of a backyard swing. We also loved the one where two of his permanent teeth got knocked out in a college basketball game. Mom really tried. But her “little girl stories” frankly weren’t very interesting—her childhood illnesses and hospital stays were no match for all of Dad’s missing teeth—so instead, we asked her to sing. Her repertoire was limited to “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music, various hymns, and the handful of 1970s pop songs she had performed to with her high school dance team. Her singing voice, high-pitched and whispery, became increasingly shrill as she began to doze off. To relieve her of her duties, we would pretend to fall asleep. After she left the room, you would give me an encore, mimicking Mom’s feathery voice with an eerie precision that caused us both to erupt into giggles.
At some point after you moved in, we begged for a pair of giant pillows at the Family Dollar, just so we could have one matching item on our beds. Constructed of hot pink velvet, the pillows were a little longer than our twin beds were wide. As needed, they could transform into lightsabers or prevent our baby brother from rolling too far across the room. On the days our parents fought, they were the doors to the secret hideout under our desk. We would spread out my sleeping bag on the floor, tuck our favorite Beanie Babies into our laps, and prop up the pillows in front of the desk so no one could see in or out. You always brought a doll or two, and my job was to procure entertainment. I’d read you stories, or we’d make friendship bracelets.
When the fighting got really bad, we ducked into our closet, which was split in half by a plywood divider wall. We had to squeeze into my side because your side was genuinely spooky. For starters, there was a small, flimsy door that led down into the crawl space. (I opened it once.) Next to the door was a defunct water faucet. It didn’t turn on and didn’t have any purpose as far as we knew. Weird stuff aside, your half of the closet was full of our shoes and mine had the toy shelves. While we waited for things to blow over, we’d slide the slatted doors shut and scarf down dry packets of Easy Bake Oven mix.
After the baby came and our parents were too tired to fight all the time, I convinced you that skeletons lived under that closet. I’m not sure if I actually wanted to scare you or if I just found the story entertaining. Every night when we turned out our light, the skeletons would wake up. They would use their bony fingers to raise the latch and climb through the panel. Then they would turn on the faucet so they could wash their hands before supper. They feasted on anything they could find as they lurked in the recesses of the closet: Barbie shoes, dried-up markers, Lite Brite pegs. To wash it all down, they took swigs out of the paint can left over from the previous year’s nursery remodel. You were petrified. If I really wanted to play it up, I’d tap my fingernails on the wall by my bed and tell you a bony hand was on the loose and headed in your direction.
For practical purposes, we did have our own sides of the room. My side had stacks of chapter books and yours had under-bed bins brimming with baby doll clothes. We didn’t have room for a dresser, but there was a desk between the beds that doubled as a nightstand. When your baby dolls inevitably tumbled from your bed and started crawling toward mine, I unrolled a line of white masking tape down the middle of the floor.
At night, the sides melted away. You always wanted to talk. Or sing the alphabet. Or play games, like Twenty Questions or “Invisible I Spy,” in which one of us described an item like an animal on our wallpaper or a dress in our closet while the other guessed what the item was. Sometimes, we both masturbated and raced to see who could “get to the good part” first. Do you remember the night when Dad walked in on us? He made us stop but didn’t explain what we were doing or why he didn’t want us to do it. After that, we just made sure to be quieter. It distracted us from the robbers and the skeletons. And the demons.
The demons existed exclusively in your reality. They were the shadowy creatures that lived under your bed and possessed the power to pull you down into hell by the ankles. You often woke up needing to pee but were too scared to get up. Since I didn’t believe in the demons, we eventually worked out that we could use my ankles as bait while you made your escape. I didn’t mind protecting you. But some nights, I just wanted to read chapter books by the light of my glow- in-the-dark watch, so I would shine my watch at the floor to deactivate the demons and light your path. Other nights, I would remind you about the skeletons under the closet and tell you they might find their way into your bed if you didn’t shut up.
Every Saturday, we stripped our beds and washed the sheets. Your bed had an extra knit blanket and a waterproof mattress protector—for nights when the demons won. These were items I had never noticed when you had your own room. But the moment you moved in, making our shared world feel fair became essential. I grabbed the purple-and-blue Afghan throw from the living room sofa and an extra fitted sheet from the bathroom linen closet and called it good. I never told you, but I would continue making my bed with two layers of fitted sheets every week until you outgrew the need for a mattress protector. It took two years.
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When I was twenty-eight and you were twenty-six, you withdrew from my life. Your husband and baby needed you. You still don’t know how I feel about it because your new brand of religion shields you from people like me. You’re convinced there isn’t room for both of us.
According to the Apostle Paul, you and I can no longer share a table. For five years, my wife and I spent holidays, vacations, and late nights on the phone with you. So, when we came to town for Grandma’s funeral that November weekend, we were happy to make room in our plans for a last-minute coffee with you and your husband.
Minutes before our departing flight, your husband opened his Bible app and scrolled to 1 Corinthians. While you nodded and stared at your hands, he explained that “we may no longer have fellowship.” That while the two of you would still be able to accept our generosity, you could no longer extend invitations. You chimed in, half-whispering that you needed to roll out this white line to secure your own family’s salvation. That your theology severely clashed with my rainbow flag, and you didn’t want anyone accidentally conflating the two.
On the plane, your words hung heavily, choking me like a too-tight necklace.
Birthdays come and go. My wife and I buy your kids all the toys: Lincoln Logs, a sandbox, really good books. It’s not their fault that you’re like this. We live in the same town as you now, so we stop by your porch with your children’s birthday gifts. We’re not allowed inside the door.
You don’t need me to protect you from robbers anymore—your husband’s bedside gun collection is more than sufficient for that. But what happens on the nights when your demons show up? I have always worried for you. Every Saturday, I still strip my bed and wash the sheets. I am guessing you do too.
If only you didn’t have to believe in so many kinds of demons. Maybe someday the sides will melt away and you will want to talk. For now, we will continue forcing smiles from across the room at holiday parties while uncles and grandparents play Twenty Questions or I Spy with our kids. I am the skeleton in your closet. Only, my hands will never be clean enough to join you for supper.
This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 1. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.
