A Night at Samantha's House

It was still hot at midnight when twelve-year-old Kyle arose, as he’d planned. Slipping out of his Star Wars pajamas, he changed into the clothing that he had earlier laid at the foot of the bed: underpants, tee-shirt, and cutoff shorts. With sneakers in hand, he tiptoed down the hardwood stairs in bare feet. The door clicked shut behind him. Inside, he’d been a prisoner. Outside, he was an intruder on the night.

           The backyard trees—mature maples and smaller, recently planted varieties—left no space for throwing, dribbling, or kicking. The only sign that a child lived here was the jungle gym set in the rear, near a massive wooden fence, a solid six-footer that you couldn’t see through. Like the future, Kyle thought.

           At 6:30, his mother would come to wake him for summer camp, but he would be gone. The camp was to be his babysitter, a place for his parents to put him while they worked—a place to set him aside and out of mind for a few weeks. After that, he didn’t know what they’d do with him. Normally, the Kenner family would have taken him, but they had moved. They wouldn’t have asked anyway, being that Kyle had caused the death of Samantha, the Kenner’s daughter. She’d stepped in front of a speeding vehicle, her head down while talking to Kyle on her phone. Kyle heard tires squeal and an awful thud through the speaker.

           “Samantha, what happened?” he’d screamed at the phone, but the line had gone dead. When he found out she’d died, he hurled his phone into the trash. But the phone wasn’t to blame.

           He had no intention of going to camp or of doing anything, ever again. Samantha’s image would arise, unbidden, in his mind at any inopportune moment, like when Mrs. Cassidy called on him in History class. He started to cry in full view of his classmates. Then, at home, he heard Samantha’s voice, as clear as day. “Do you like my dress?” she asked, and he answered, “It’s lovely.” That was something he’d never have said when she was alive. Nor would she have been foolish enough to ask. But he had an image of Samantha in front of him, twirling around in a swishy dress. When his mother shook him by the arm and asked, “What’s wrong with you?” He hung his head. He didn’t have an answer.

           The strangest things reminded him of Samantha: a whiff of fresh air coming through an open window or a dog barking. The neighborhood cat, Jeffery, would climb on his lap and purr, a stray he and Samantha had befriended. Jeffery missed her too.

           She died near the end of the school year. They would have gone into seventh grade at a new school together.

           “It will be so exciting,” Samantha had said. Kyle was less confident. He would have to get used to new teachers and older kids. He must have looked doubtful.

           “Don’t worry. It will be fine. I’ll be there.” Her reassuring smile had given him courage. Now, he’d have to face it alone.

            They met in third grade, both of them on the same soccer team. Their mothers discovered their backyards butted together but were separated by the wooden fence, so the families had not met. “I don’t know why Harry doesn’t take that darn fence down. Then we could have a neighborly conversation,” Mrs. Kenner had exclaimed. When Kyle’s mother got a job in September, Samantha’s mom agreed to take Kyle every day after school.

           At first, Kyle and Samantha hated the arrangement. Kyle, because he couldn’t play football with his friends, and Samantha because her mother said she had to keep company with Kyle, forbidding her to have her girlfriends over because Kyle might feel awkward. “That’s not my fault, Samantha said, “I didn’t ask for this.” But soon, they became inseparable.

           Kyle shook his head to stop the flow of memories and laced his sneakers. He hadn’t planned his escape well enough and didn’t know where to go. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had to leave. He climbed to the top of the jungle gym and grabbed hold of the wooden fence that separated his yard from the Kenner’s. Swinging himself over, he dropped softly to the turf on the other side. Samantha’s tetherball hung loosely from its pole. It felt soft and familiar in his hands as he remembered his first day at the Kenner’s.

            Mrs. Kenner had shooed them outside. “You two go out and play. I’ll call you in later to do your homework.”

           They slumped outside, Kyle following Samantha. She looked around the yard, exasperated, and said, “Want to play tetherball?”

           He shrugged, so she hit the ball to him, and he gave it a frustrated whack back to her.

            “Don’t hit so hard,” she said.

           “That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

           “All right.” Then she’d surprised him with a ferocious smack of the ball that slapped him in the face. He laughed and hit it back to her more softly.

           Now the abandoned backyard felt spooky, and the house was empty. Samantha’s parents had moved out. Kyle cupped his hands around his eyes at the back window of the Kenner’s house and peered inside, but he couldn’t see anything. He tested the back door and found it locked, but he knew another way in that Samantha had shown him. Crouching at the basement window, he lifted it gently and pushed. Gently, he lifted the window out and crawled through the opening.

           Once they won a history contest at school, he’d bragged about it to her mother. “Samantha knew all the answers. The other team didn’t have a chance.” Mrs. Kenner had sent them downstairs to fetch ice cream for a celebratory snack. Samantha had handed him the ice cream from the freezer and looked at him with a gleam in her eye. “What?” he’d asked.

           Then she’d kissed him lightly on his cheek.

           “Why’d you do that?”

           “Cause of what you told my mom.”

           “It’s the truth. You’re the one that knew the answers.”

           “But you helped me study.”

           Kyle shook his head to clear the memory. The house had the feel of a space hastily abandoned. Large cavities inhabited the places where appliances had been. He missed the imposing French doors of the stainless steel refrigerator, well-stocked with after-school treats, and Mrs. Kenner preparing an evening meal at the island countertop. He had loved the aroma of a roast in the oven or an apple pie on a fall day. His mom had always been too busy to cook such involved meals. He and Samantha did extravagant things too. Once, he and Samantha did a thousand-piece puzzle on the kitchen table, with pieces spread all over for weeks.

           Now a stack of business cards sat on the countertop displaying the picture of a smiling real estate agent. Kyle brushed them aside. Most of them scattered along with the gray granite. A few fluttered to the floor. Kyle tramped on one that had landed with the face up.

           The family room, too, was a vast expanse of emptiness. A cable lay unattached, strung out like a snake. A stretch of carpet, where the sofa had been, reminded him of the outlines of bodies in a television crime scene. He remembered lounging on that sofa, waiting for dinner on nights when Mrs. Kenner invited him to stay. The living room walls showed faint lines where picture frames once hung. One had been of Mrs. Kenner in her wedding gown, looking young and beautiful. Samantha would have looked much the same in a few years, Kyle thought.

           He climbed the stairs to the second floor. A chill shuttered through him as he passed the master bedroom, its door hanging open. Samantha’s room was shut tight. He stood at her door with his feet apart, closing his fingers around the handle. His heart pounded as he pushed it open. At first, he couldn’t see a thing. A blackout shade was drawn over the window. He reached for the light switch. A shimmering pink light shone through carved butterflies and flowers. Samantha hadn’t liked the chandelier, a leftover from her younger days.

           Her room was preserved as he remembered it, in accents of lime and coral, a white bedroom set, and the bed dressed in a duvet cover. Her dresser, immaculately clean, and the chest of drawers, neatly closed, seemed to expect her return. The end table held a lamp, perfectly centered.

           He unpinned a snapshot from the wall. It was one of Samantha in her soccer uniform, alongside an Alex Morgan poster in the same pose; hands on hips, with one foot resting on a ball. He hugged the picture to his chest.

            When Samantha wanted to get away from her parents, she took him to her room. Sometimes they studied or listened to music and talked. She didn’t have cable in her room, so when the weather turned bad, they played old-fashioned board games like scrabble or monopoly, lying on the bed with the board between them.

           The last time they played scrabble, he saw the white of her bra when she leaned forward to place her letters. Then she looked up and smiled at him. She laid her head down. Her dark hair fanned out on the pillow, and she said, “Beat that.” She’d tried to say it in her stern, soccer voice, but it came out soft and lilting. She had transformed the word ‘man,’ which they’d already placed with ‘ro’ in front and ‘tic’ after it. She was changing, and he wondered what that would mean for them. They never had the time to find out.

           Kyle pulled the cover back from the bed and pulled her pillow to his cheek. It smelled of her perfume, a light scent she had taken to wearing. He looked around as if to check if anyone was watching and then crawled under the covers, wrapping his arms around the pillow, holding it the way he once hugged his stuffed bear.

           He fell into a dream but awoke to the sound of breaking glass and an anxious voice, the worried tone of his mother. Footsteps plodded up the stairs. The door swung open, and his parents found him lying in Samantha’s bed, hugging her pillow.

           He thought that they would be angry at him. Daylight seeped around the window shade, and he knew they must be late for work.

           “I came to say goodbye to Samantha,” Kyle said.

           “Your father had to break a window.”

           “I miss her.”

           His mom didn’t answer but patted him lightly on the head. “Let’s go home,” she said.

           Kyle nodded. Outside, he shielded his eyes from the sunlight. He thought he never wanted to go home again but was now glad his parents found him. He felt a lonely peace. He would go to camp, play sports, and make new friends. But he would never forget Samantha. He held her picture in his hand. He vowed to look at it every day. Forever.