91.

We were children again. The world continued to revolve solemnly for the next few years. The chatter of neighbors in our backyard filled the air. Mother walked in and out of the house, carrying dishes of steaming food or returning empty plates. She talked through the open windows, her sweet voice flinging through the air.

Occasionally father would pass by the doors to grab an art project or another collector's item he wished to show off. I saw him carrying a slim, ivory stone cradled in a white basket. He hid it from my view, boasting about its ancient origins loudly to our guests. I peered through the windows and through the cracks in the doors, trying to fend off my loneliness. In the bright, pouring sunshine, slowly turning red as evening neared, I saw the adults now sitting, now standing, now doing something peculiar with their mouths and hands. I did not understand it, but I received such secret satisfaction from watching their games. I felt wicked, like a brat demon child from the old books.

At one point, as night started to appear along the rim of the sky, I heard shuffling noises up the stairs. I hid in my room, peering through a crack. I held a book in my hand, so if someone were to barge in I could hop on my bed and pretend to have been peacefully reading the entire time. No one entered. My lamp emitted a hazy glow into the room, casting my face into reverse-shadow.

The visitors crept past my room and into the loft, where I knew my parents slept. I heard Mother's tinkling laugh and father gruff bark following. I was jealous and mad that they hadn't let me join in on the celebration. I had not known there were guests until the first couples started pouring in. I didn't know it was a celebration until a bottle of old champagne popped, following by a spattering of applause and woops.

The violators stood in my parents' loft, half-hidden by the dim lighting. The man grabbed at the woman's dress. She mumbled something and laughed, gliding through the objects in the drawers. I heard something clatter and shuffle. Then I could not see the couple from behind the banister, but I saw the woman bending over one of the armoires. A drawer had slid wide open and mother's underwear fell out. The woman rifled through them madly, finally finding an object hidden in her fist and in the shadows that she slid to the man behind her who was making hideous sounds. I felt sick.

They had stolen something!

I knew I had to run out and confront them, but in doing so I would have to disobey my parents' strict orders that I stayed hidden in my room. But they never mentioned what I should do in case of a robbery! I felt betrayed. I felt unloved. I wanted to strangle mother and father for doing this to me. I clutched at the door, trying to pierce the darkness with the force of my gaze. Soon I heard an exasperated sigh. They had not found what they were seeking and turned away. The woman flitted by my door again, her blood red dress rumpled. I think I caught the man meet my eyes, but he was too embarrassed to keep it.

Once the guests had left and I was having lunch with my parents the following day, I described to them what I had heard. I tried to make it seem as though I had been dozing and perked my head up at a sound. Then I had supposedly crept to the doorway, thinking my parents had arrived to bid me good night, when I saw a woman in a red dress creep through the drawers and take something.

At this, Mother and Father laughed loudly.

I thought they had caught me in my dishonesty and waited to be punished. I bunched my shoulders together, waiting for a hard slap. I did not know what I awaited such a punishment. I had never received a beating, in fact it was not even the norm to hit a child unless he had truly committed some crime. But, with crime low in our part of the world, that rarely happened. My thoughts had been influenced by the past. I had read books where misbehaving children gained a flogging against their buttocks for stealing a treat or toy.

Instead of hitting me, father patted my head. "Do not worry, we had sent them up there to retrieve something of ours. I appreciate you telling us this, however, Elder Berry." He had called me by the nickname I once loathed. I had memories where it brought me great joy and I had memories where it only caused me pain. Sometimes I could not tell the difference.

"But why did they have to act like thieves?" I argued.

"We have strange neighbors." Father said.

Mother turned to me. Her smooth, sloping face was sober, darkly so. She sighed through puckered lips. "Son, you must understand, we are fools."

I did not know how to respond. I turned to my water glass, staring into the clear depths. I poked at my food, hoping I would look like I was pensive when in reality I was sick to the stomach for some reason. I fingered the glass, rubbing away the film of sweat along the surface. My eyes started to droop. I had not slept that night, for worry over what the man and woman had stolen. Was it precious? Would it cause us to lose our house? My imagination rocketed to a thousand and one different places, leaving my body paralyzed on earth.

Now, since I knew my parents were fine with it and that my father's strong jaw did not twitch into the agitated expression he wore when upset as I told him, I could rest. As I dropped off to sleep, Mother circled her arms around me and took me upstairs, admonishing me for not sleeping.

"One day you'll live in our world, Berwald." She set me down in my bed. As my vision faded, giving way to dreams, she kissed my forehead and with a single look placed bountiful love in my heart again. I was content until the next, inevitable party.