“What’s a door?” I asked my mom.
She had always towered over me, and even after I hit my teenage years I’d never come close to catching up with her height.
She looked surprised at the question. Indignant and angry.
“Where did you hear that nasty word?” She snapped, getting red in the face.
I didn’t know what to say. It was obvious where I’d heard it from, but I pretended to act stupid and told her I wasn’t sure.
She stormed off, her feet stomping across the wooden floorboards.
“Tom! What did I tell you about using that dirty word? That dirty, foul, nasty word!!??”
My stepbrother yelled and screamed as she dragged him across the single large room towards the bathtub, his fingernails scraping across the wooden floor as he clawed and scratched desperately to get away. Then she began to fill the tub with scalding water.
“We need to rinse that mouth out with soap. And then we’ll get you clean again. So clean. Everything will be clean.”
The screams went on for a while, and that horrible abrasive brushing sound as she scrubbed him and scrubbed him in the hot water until his skin was raw and bleeding in pinpoint spots.
Then she dried him off with the towel, her eyes moist with tears. Tom just looked down at the floor, shaking and terrified.
“It was for your own good. You’re clean now, Tom. Just like you’re meant to be.”
She bent down and embraced him in a bear hug, squeezing him until his bones creaked and he let out a little cry of pain.
Then she finally let him go.
“Okay, sweetie,” she said, looking at me. “It’s your turn to get clean now.”
*
Later that night the three of us went to bed together, all squished onto the small mattress as always.
There had been more room before Tom arrived, but I was happy for his company, even if he was miserable. At least it wasn’t just me and Mommy anymore.
Those days before Tom had been the worst. Her full attention was always solely on me. Her potent rage and her affection, and all of her insecurities.
After a while Mommy began to snore, and Tom and I pretended to do the same.
Once she was certain we were asleep she got up and went over to the furthest wall of the room. Her fingers traced a path along the wallpaper seam and she began to pull it back very carefully.
I watched through mostly closed eyelids as she exposed the tall, rectangular shape behind the wallpaper.
A soft click could be heard and a moment later she was gone. I couldn’t believe it. Mommy was actually gone.
Tom jumped up from the bed and took me by the hand, leading me over to it.
He lifted my hand towards the seams of the strange shape and looked at me with his red, bleeding face.
“That,” he said. “Is a door.”
*
We stood in front of it, just staring at it for a while. Both of us were silent, but Tom seemed to be looking for something with his keen eyes scanning up and down.
“How does it work?” I asked. “What does it do?”
Tom said the door would change everything, but what that meant I still didn’t know. When he’d tried to explain it to me his words had become difficult to understand - phrases and things that I couldn’t comprehend came tumbling out of his mouth in a rambling whisper.
Mommy slept more and more lately, and now I was beginning to understand why. She was using the door to leave us. To abandon us. But, to go where?
“There should be a handle. A knob. Something to make it open.”
Tom was running his fingers along the seams of the door now, trying to feel for something.
“Go get me a knife from the kitchen, will you?”
I hesitated.
“But, we’re not supposed to touch the knives. Mommy will know. She always knows.”
He turned to look at me and I saw how desperate he was at that moment. He was barely containing his emotions.
“Please. Help me. If I’m right about this we won’t have to worry about what she does when she gets back, okay?”
I didn’t argue any further, instead running to the kitchen and grabbing a butter knife.
“The flattest, strongest one you can find,” he whispered. “Nothing flimsy!”
My eyes settled on one of the knives and I pulled it from the drawer, bringing it over to him.
He took it in his hands for a moment, examining its edge. Then he inserted it into the space between the door and the frame, gently wiggling and prying.
At first it didn’t move. It stayed stubbornly locked in place.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“I didn’t even think she might put a lock on the other side. But she might have. And if she did…”
“What???” I persisted.
“Nothing,” he said, his face red with effort, his arms flexing and shaking with the strain of all of his energy. “Just, give me a second. I think it’s starting to move.”
The progress was imperceptible at first. Then it was only budging by a millimetre at a time, but soon it was an inch, and then it was swinging free, revealing…
A small, barely visible gap.
A chain which locked the door from the other side could be seen holding it closed.
A two inch gap was now open, revealing a dusty, dark staircase leading upwards.
Tom burst into tears, falling to his knees, and dropping the knife to the floor where it landed with a loud clang.
I was completely in awe, seeing the stairs. Just seeing something new was incredible. Something different from the same four walls I had been staring at since I was born.
Putting my eyeball right up to the gap, I took it in desperately. I felt like someone who had just escaped the desert getting their first taste of water.
“Damnit!” Tom shouted, no longer seeming to care who heard him.
“Quiet! What if she’s still here?”
“She’s not. She went to work.”
“What’s work?” I asked, not understanding this new word.
“To her job?? How do you not know this stuff? Has she really got you this brainwashed!?” He shouted, now sounding like he was angry with me for my stupidity and ignorance.
“Out there you have to work to earn money. Money is how you get food and clothes and things like that. Her money must have run out and that’s why she can’t stay in here all the time anymore. She’s gotta force herself to go outside into the GERMS.”
“Don’t say that word!” I yelled, covering my ears.
Just the word could hurt you badly, but not as bad as ACTUAL germs - something I didn’t even want to think about running into.
Then it occurred to me - germs would be EVERYWHERE if we went past the door. Mommy had always told us this place was special. That we were safe here. But I never really understood there was an alternative to HERE. For my entire life I’d thought this was all there was.
“She can’t hear us! She’s far away from here, okay? She just knows how to scare you and keep you scared. That’s why I’m trying to help you.”
“Are you sure?”
He rolled his eyes and I could tell he was getting annoyed by my questions again, so I stayed quiet for a minute to let him think.
“We need something long and narrow and heavy. Maybe we can break the lock.”
His eyes were searching the room for something which fit that description, but there was nothing immediately obvious.
“Help me look!”
I began looking around the room, trying not to disturb anything. It was difficult, since Mommy had such specific ways of organizing things. All of the items on the bookcase were neatly lined up and arranged alphabetically. The toys in our little cupboard were aligned perfectly like jigsaw puzzle pieces, with barely enough space between items to fit a finger to pry them out for playtime.
“What about that?” I asked, my eyes settling on a hammer which Mommy kept up on top of the fridge. If I hadn’t known it was there I wouldn’t have seen it - but I knew the contents of our little home extremely well. For my entire life I’d stared at nothing but the people and things in this single room.
“That’s perfect!” Tom yelled, trying to climb up onto the cupboards. “Here, give me a boost.”
I stood behind him and cupped my hands, making an improvised step ladder out of them. Then, he began to climb. All the while I was watching the stairs out of the corner of my eye, hoping she wouldn’t return. If she did, I could only imagine what she would do.
Probably the collar again. Or the paddle. Maybe both.
Tom got up on the counter, then grabbed the hammer from on top of the fridge. After that, he sat down with his legs dangling and began to scrub at the shoe prints he had left, wiping them clean with his shirt sleeve.
“Remember how everything looks,” he said. “So we can put it back if we have to.”
I nodded, looking around the room and trying to fix everything so that it was just how it had always been.
Tom walked over to the door and stood on his toes, trying to reach up high enough so that he could swing the hammer and bring it down on the chain lock.
“Okay, here goes,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s hope this works.”
He swung the hammer with all of the force he could muster, bringing it down into the gap between the door and the frame, where the chain lock was dangling.
The first swing of the hammer hit the doorframe and bounced off, barely making contact with the chain. The second time was slightly better, but it remained in place, giving no indication of damage. The lock was stronger than it appeared.
“Shit,” Tom muttered, looking down at his hand. His knuckles were bleeding from where they’d banged off the doorframe.
“Tom! You’re bleeding!”
His hands were dripping dark crimson droplets onto the floorboards and I felt my nerves beginning to crack under the pressure. I kept imagining Mommy coming home at that exact moment and catching us doing what we were doing.
If that happened, what would we do?
Just as I had that thought, I heard a loud noise outside. What I would come to discover was a car door being slammed shut.
We both knew right away what it meant, though.
Mommy was home.