Ted

Ted

I’m back, with the force of a blow – breathless, as if I have been punched in the guts. In one clenched fist I hold a knife. It’s the big one that I keep hidden at the back of the high cupboard in the kitchen. No one knows about it except me. The blade is broad, polished to a high sheen. Grey daylight dances along its length and the edge gleams wickedly. It has been recently sharpened.

‘Steady, Little Teddy,’ I whisper. The rhyme makes me laugh.

Start with the basics. Where and when am I? Where is easy. I check the living room. Orange rug, bright and cheerful. Ballerina standing proud and upright on her music-box stage. The holes in the plywood are grey circles, filled with rain. OK, fine. I’m home, downstairs.

Whenis a little more difficult. In the refrigerator there is half a gallon of milk, yellowing and sour. A jar of pickles. Otherwise it’s a bare white space. In the trash are sixteen empty cans. So, I ate and drank everything while I was away. I was surprisingly tidy, however. The kitchen’s clean. I even smell bleach.

‘Kitten,’ I call. Olivia doesn’t come. I am filled with bad ideas. Is she sick, or dead? The last thought brings horrible panic. I make myself breathe slowly. Relax. She’ll be hiding.

I lost days, this time. At a guess, three. I check the TV. Yes, almost noon. So three days, more or less.

I go through the house, making sure of padlocks on the cupboards and the freezer, checking everything. I did some damage while I was out. Scratched up the orange rug, broke Mommy’s Russian dolls into tiny shards. When I check my closet I find that some of my shoes are wet. Did it rain? Did I go through a river or something? Or a lake, my mind whispers. I shut that down real quick. I go to take a drink but apparently I broke the bourbon, too. Never mind. I get a fresh bottle and a pickle.

As I’m eating I drop the pickle. When I bend down to pick it up I see a gleam of white. There’s something under the refrigerator. I know what it is. It shouldn’t be down here.

Up in the attic there’s the sound of weeping. It’s the green boys. They’ve been quiet lately but now they’re kicking up a storm. ‘Shut up!’ I yell. ‘Shut up! I’m not scared of you!’ But I am. I have nightmares that one day I will wake up in the attic, surrounded by the green boys and their long fingers and that I will slowly disappear, fading into the green. I hook the white flip-flop out from under the refrigerator and throw it in the trash. It’s got bad memories all over it like fungus.

I don’t put the knife back in the high cupboard. Instead I bury it in the back yard under cover of dark. Isn’t that a wonderful expression? It makes the night sound like a warm blanket, littered with stars. I find a good place beneath a stand of blue elder.

I am still quite upset so I eat another pickle in front of the TV and slowly I calm down. I can’t stop now. Those women weren’t the right friends for me, I guess, but I’m not a quitter.