Speaker 1: Growing up, I had what most people would have called
her perfect childhood. We had money, quite a bit of it.
We lived in a house with high windows, soft carpet,
and a back yard big enough to forget where the
edges were. My father, Jonathan, was a quiet man. He
led prayer every morning before school and every night before bed,
and he spoke with conviction. My mother was grace in motion.
She read poetry, cooked like she had studied it, and
always seemed to know what I was feeling before I
said a word. I loved them both deeply, without question.
They didn't hide things from each other, but hid one
thing from me. There was a strange man that lived
with us. Perhaps that's the wrong word. He existed in
our house, always on the edge of where light ended.
He really appeared as a full aperation. Sometimes he was
just a flicker in the corner of a mirror. Sometimes
it was deeper shadows that didn't move when the sun did,
or the smell of smoke in a room when nothing
had burned. And he scared me. While my dad and
I were cleaning out the garage. I had worked up
the courage after an afternoon of silence to ask him
who the man was. He stopped stacking the boxes, straightened
his back, and smiled at me. That's your uncle, he said,
without hesitation, he doesn't mean you harm. As young as
I was, I knew my father didn't have a brother.
That night, he sat me down at the kitchen table,
his hands folded in front of him, and he gently
but firmly told me that if I ever saw anything strange, mirrors, shadows,
or noises that didn't make sense, I should ignore it.
He said it firmly, as if it was one of
the house rules, just as important as brushing my teeth
or saying grace. He told me not to ask questions
if you see him, Just keep walking, he said. I
asked him why, because that's what we do, he said.
He looked scared. After that conversation, I started paying closer
attention to the way my father acted around the house.
After sundown, my father would become weary. He grew quieter
and more rigid. He would sometimes excuse himself and go
sit in the basement, like he was hiding from him.
I remember the first time I saw him, really saw him,
not in a mirror or a trick of light, but
in full He stood on the back porch, his face
blank and hands at his sides. His coat was dark
and long, and his skin looked gray under the porch light.
Dull and lifeless. Wherever he appeared, my father entered the
door before anyone else could. He would step outside, pull
the door closed behind him, and speak in whispers. I
couldn't hear much, but I knew that the man would
hand him something, a piece of paper, would tuck the
note away, move with urgency, and leave the house without
finishing his meal or saying goodbye. Sometimes he would make
calls from the landline in the garage. Once he didn't
come home until morning. He looked drained, His shirt was unbuttoned,
and his kind eyes were bloodshot. I tried asking about
the man once. I didn't even make it through the question. Don't.
My father said, not angry, but firm, Just don't. After that,
I learned to keep quiet, but the man kept coming.
It happened ten years ago. I remember the exact date
because it was two days after my birthday. I just
turned eight, and I was still riding the high of
presents and cake and the way my mother smiled when
she sang. The weather had started to turn, the heat
pulling back and leaving behind that crisp early autumn air
that carried the scent of dry leaves and chimney smoke.
That night, I saw my father standing at the back
door again. I was on the stairs holding a book.
I heard the door open and I saw the man outside.
He looked the same as always. I knew what would happen.
I'd seen it before. The man would hand him a note,
my father would read it, and then everything would shift
into motion. He would leave, pray, or make a quiet
call to someone I'd never met. But that didn't happen
this time. The man passed in the paper. My father
looked at it, looked down and unfolded it. His eyes
moved over the page once, then again. His hand dropped
to his side. He didn't move, he just stood there
holding the paper. I thought he was going to faint.
I stepped down on to the next step. He turned slowly,
his face pale. He looked past me. He looked like
he had aged ten years in that moment alone. Then
he really looked at me. My father had never looked
at me that way. Hell, nobody has ever looked at
me that way since. His eyes filled with tears, and
I thought he might say something, but instead he turned
toward the hallway. My mother had entered the room. She
had a dish towel in her hands, still damp from washing.
She looked at him. He handed it to her. She
unfolded it. Her mouth opened and at first no sound
came out. She stared at the paper, blinked once, and
then collapsed onto the floor, her knees hitting the tile.
She screamed, not in fear or even grief, but in helplessness,
a sound that split the room. I didn't know what
was on that paper, yet, I just knew it broke
something in her, something that wouldn't heal. My father crouched
beside her and tried to return the paper, but she
pulled away. She crushed it in a fist and held
it against the chest. After my mother crumpled to the floor,
my father finally seemed to remember I was standing there.
He turned toward me, and for a second I thought
he was going to me over. Instead, he gave me
a small nod. His voice was quiet, Go to your
room for a little while. Your mother and I need
to talk. I didn't question him. I walked back up
the stairs and closed my door behind me. I sat
on the carpet by the window, legs pulled against my chest,
watching the backyard sway in the wind. I figured someone
had died, maybe my grandmother or someone from my father's
side i'd never met, that would explain the tears. At
some point, I pressed my ear to the floor. I
wanted to hear something, anything, but there was nothing at first,
just the settling of the house. Then eventually I heard
my mother. Her weeping was soft, barely there, sorrow that
couldn't be helped or postponed. Her voice cracked a few times,
but I couldn't make out any words. Then it faded again,
and I was left in silence. I must have fallen
asleep at some point, because when I opened my eyes,
the sky outside was darker, clouded over. The hallway was dim.
I didn't remember going to bed, but I must have
crawled up there. I got up and walked to the
door I needed to pee. I crept down the hall,
dragging my hands against the wall as I went, and stopped.
Just before I reached the stairs. I could hear them.
My parents were downstairs speaking in the kitchen. They weren't whispering,
We weren't even trying to be quiet. My father's voice
was sharp, strained. How are we going to do this
in just six months? There was the sound of something
clattering on the counter, a cup maybe, or a spoon.
Then my mother snapped back, we can't just give him up.
He has never asked for something this messed up before.
How do we even go about this? Curse your grandfather, Jonathan.
She sounded panicked, Her words hit like stones thrown in
every direction. My father didn't answer right away. I heard
him pace as I stood at the top of the stairs.
My heart thumbed harder with each passing second. I didn't
understand what they meant, give up? Who? What did six
months mean? Who had asked for something? But I did
hear the fear in their voices. My mind went back
to him. That was when the idea first started to
take root in my chest. I didn't know what he
had written down, but I knew it had something to
do with me, and I knew for the first time
in my life that whatever he was, he had power
over my family. The days that followed felt wrong in
ways I couldn't explain to any one. My parents weren't
fighting openly, but everything was different they would stand in
the same room and talk like strangers. Forced to live
under the same roof, the atmosphere changed. Even on clear days,
the house felt darker. The man appeared more often. It
was hard to know what I was seeing any more.
He began showing up in my dreams, not always clearly,
sometimes just the feeling of him. Other nights, he was
a shape behind the glass, or a figure on the
other side of the window, waiting for me to wake up.
I wanted to ask my parents what was going on.
I wanted to tell them that he wasn't even trying
to stay hidden anymore, but I was afraid of what
they'd say. And then I noticed something else. My mother
started gaining weight. She wasn't eating much, but her belly
was fuller, and her steps were slower. Her shirts no
longer hung the same. I saw her once in the
bathroom mirror, holding her hand to her stomach. I could
see him standing right beside her. He was growing bolder,
or maybe we were growing weaker. As her stomach grew,
so did the weight pressing down on everything inside that house.
I caught my mother staring out the kitchen window more often,
her fingers resting on the counter, like she was waiting
for something to appear outside and carry her away. My
father became more devout than ever. He spent hours locked
in the study, muttering under his breath, his voice rising
and falling. He was constantly reciting scripture. I peeked in
once through the crack of the door and saw him kneeling,
not just praying, but rocking, whispering between his teeth, or
staring at the floor. I only got the courage to
question the entire situation one time, but I was met
with bland responses. They were clearly shrugging me off. The
night it all fell apart started with the wind. The
tree scraped the windows, The power lines swayed and groaned
above the roof. Thunder rolled in circles, never close enough
to crack the sky, but loud enough to rattle the windows.
I woke to screaming. My body reacted before my thoughts
caught up. I sat up in bed, my heart pounding
and my chest already tight. I could tell from the
tone that it wasn't just anger. My mother's voice tore
through the house with desperation. I climbed out of bed
and stepped into the hallway too scared to move closer
to afraid to go back. Her voice rang out from downstairs.
We have to give it a kid tomorrow, Jonathan. She
sounded broken. My father answered her, pleading, We'll find another way.
Just wait, please, I'm done waiting. She screamed. You know
what will happen. You know there was a crash. I
stood there, gripping the banister, my hands shaking, my stomach twisting.
Then I heard the scream my mother, one sharp, terrible
sound that cut through the house, like metal tearing through cloth,
and then nothing. I ran. I was already down the
stairs before my brain caught up to what I was doing.
The air smelled sour. The lights in the hallway were off,
but there was a glow from the bathroom door. The
lights spilled out into the dark, casting shadows on the floor.
She was on the ground, my mother. Her body was
twisted at the hip, one legs stretched out, the other
bent beneath her. Blood had soaked through a dress and
pulled under her shoulders. Her head was resting against the
base of the tub. Her eyes were open, glassy, her
mouth half parted. There was a knife in her hand.
I couldn't breathe. My father was beside her on his knees.
His shirt was stained, his face blotched red. He held
something in his hands. I didn't understand what I was
looking at. It was small, pink, a mess of limbs
and tissue. He cradled it like it might cry. He
was rocking back and forth, whispering something to it, over
and over. I wanted to scream, I wanted to ask
what happened, but nothing came out. I turned and ran
my hands hid the stair rail and missed the step
and slammed into the wall half way up. I kept
going back to my room. I closed the door, I
crawled into my closet. I curled up and held my
knees to my chest. I stayed there until the sun rose.
The funeral from my mother was quiet, not because there
weren't people there, but because no one knew what to say.
A small church just outside of town, the one my
father used to preach at. The sanctuary smell like lilies
and varnished wood. The windows were fogged from the cold,
and the pews were half full of people from my
father's congregation who wore solemn expressions. Some of them brought
cast roles, some brought their children. None of them wrought answers.
The casket was closed. Everyone said she seemed so happy,
so devoted, so warm. The official cause of death was suicide.
The coroner's report cited blood loss. The fingerprints and the
knife were hers and hers alone. They said it was
a clean case. I didn't speak at the service. I
sat in the front row and stared at the floor.
I didn't cry or blink much either. It felt wrong
to do either. One. My father stood up and delivered
something that could barely be called a eulogy. I watched
him closely, trying to find her in his face, to
find something human, something breaking, But there was nothing, just
the voice repeating words. He didn't leave anymore. Afterward, we
drove home together in silence. I watched the trees move
past the window, still half stripped from the last storm.
When we pulled into the driveway, I asked him if
we could talk. I tried to ask him what really happened,
what was happening, and if she'd said anything before she died.
He didn't respond. He walked inside, locked the bathroom door,
and didn't come out for an hour. We never spoke
about it again. My father stopped going to church. He
stopped returning calls from the other pastors. His Bible stayed
on the shelf, untouched. The prayers stopped, the grace before meals,
the whispered blessings before bed. All of it vanished. What
replaced them were bottles. He kept empties stacked in paper
bags under the sink until there were too many to hide.
I would hear him in the kitchen long after I'd
gone to bed, opening new ones, drinking them in silence,
sometimes whispering to himself. But eventually the whispers changed. He
started speaking to him. Sometimes he laughed, sometimes he cried,
sometimes he begged, and other times he just seemed to listen.
I stopped trying to talk to him. I'd questions that
I knew would never be answered, and fears I didn't
have the strength to put into words. I didn't know
what else to do. It was four years after she died.
I was seventeen. I had been holding it in for
too long. I didn't plan to say anything, but it
was a bad day and he was already drunk. And
when I found him on the porch muttering to the
darkness again, something inside me snapped. You killed her, I said,
He didn't lock up. You let her die because you're
a coward. He lifted his head slowly, like the words
took time to register. I could see how empty it
had become. He looked thinner than he had ever been.
You never did anything, I said. You never fought for her.
You just did whatever you were doing. You let her
bleed to death on the floor like that was normal.
He opened his mouth but failed to speak. Then he
stood fast enough to knock over the chair behind him.
He wanted you, he shouted, tears forming in his eyes.
A child of ours, That's what the note said. He
was trembling now, shoulders shaking, arms clenched at his sides.
He gave us six months. We didn't know what to do.
We couldn't give you up. You were just the boy.
We thought maybe if we gave him another one, it
would be enough. He stared at him. So you, I tried, asking,
He nodded, Then he shook his head, then nodded again.
We tried, he said. We tried to make another child,
but we didn't have enough time. The baby it wasn't ready.
And your mother, she couldn't bear the thought of handing
you over. So she He covered his face with his hands.
He sat down hard and led out a sound that
didn't belong to any version of my father. I had
known a sound of something breaking for good. She chose
the only thing she thought would work. I didn't say
anything else. I couldn't. I didn't even know if I
hated him anymore. I didn't know what to feel. I
stood in the doorway, watching the man who had once
led prayers and kissed my forehead at night. He looks
smaller now, smaller than anything I'd ever seen. He had
given up a long time ago. He had just forgotten
to die. My father collapsed onto the couch, shoulders buckling
under years of grief that have finally found their voice.
His face was wet, red in the corners, streaked with
the cries of a man who wasn't weak, but it
surrendered to the truth. I sat across from him, arms
resting on my knees, breath shallow. I felt sick, my
skin tingled, and my legs ached, but I didn't move.
I needed to know where did he come from? I asked.
My voice was quieter than I expected. He stared at
the ceiling above my head, eyes unfocused, as if he
was watching something move across it that I couldn't see.
Then he nodded just once and began to speak. My father,
he said, slowly, as if pulling each word from a
well buried deep in his chest. Your grandfather made a
deal with something. I think. He swallowed hard, rubbed at
the corner of his mouth, and kept going. I was
born wrong, crippled. I couldn't walk, talk, or even breathe right.
They told him I'd never live a full life. Doctors
gave up. I don't remember any of it. I was
too young, but he swore it was hopeless. Then one
morning I stood up, I talked, I was fine. He
let that hang in the air for a moment, then
looked down at his hands. That's when he came. After
I got better, he showed up at our door, just
standing there. Father knew what he was. I don't know how,
but he did, and he let him in. He looked
up then straight into my eyes. He did things for him,
just like I did and still do. He leaned back
on the couch, his voice trembling. Now. I don't know
what the first note said, but I remember what happened afterward.
Her cousin vanished. Then my uncle one day, your grandfather
refused to do what the man said. He thought he
was strong enough. I guess. He shook his head, jaw
clenched tight. People in our family were taken, my father included,
gone without explanation. I don't even know what it is
he said. He never told me. Maybe he didn't know either.
Maybe that was part of the deal. Keep serving and
stay ignorant. He gives us wealth and luck, if you
can call it that. But he ran a hand through
his hair, then dropped it to his lap. He exhaled
a slow, tired breath. I curse him, my son. I
curse my father every day. If he just left me
the way I was, maybe none of this would have happened.
Maybe i'd have a short life, a quiet one, but
a real one, and you, you would have never known
any of this. His voice cracked again. He didn't wipe
his eyes this time, he let them fall freely. I
used to wonder if I was ever supposed to be
a father, if maybe he'd let me live, just so
i'd carry the burden to someone else. He turned toward
me and for once didn't try to be strong. I'm sorry,
I'm so sorry. I should have ended it. I should
have done something. I should have I don't know. I
don't know what I could have done, but it should
have been anything but this. His words hit hard, my
chest burned. I hated him for so long that I
didn't know how to stop. But hearing him say those
words and the ruin behind his eyes left me hollow.
For the first time since my mother died. Neither of
us was angry. He leaned back on the couch and
tilted his head toward the ceiling. His lips moved as
he mumbled to himself, words too quiet to catch. Eventually,
the weight of everything dragged him into sleep. I sat
there for a long time after he closed his eyes,
listening to the wind outside and the faint clock ticking
above the fireplace. When I finally stood and left the room,
the house was quiet. I moved into the hallway, not
sure where I was going. My steps were slow, my
thoughts wouldn't settle, and then I felt it, a light
touch on my shoulder. I froze. I turned my head.
He was behind me, not half there, not distorted in
a mirror or hiding in a shadow. He stood fully, visible,
completely real. I could see the lines on his coat
the folds in the collar, the age, and the cloth.
He was tall. His skin was pale, but not corpse, pale,
just drained. His face was long and unreadable. His eyes
were I can't remember them. He held out his hand.
There was a note in it. I didn't reach for it.
My arm moved on its own. MY fingers took it
from his hand, and the second it left his palm,
he vanished. I stared at the paper for a long
time before I unfolded it. My hands were shaking, my
throat was dry. I already knew it was meant for me.
Three words written in neat, slanted hand writing, cripple your
father m