Paradise Lost

Jenny wasn’t afraid of monsters anymore; she was seven after all. Well, she was almost seven, and that was too old to fear what might be lurking under the bed. Her nightlight shone across the floor, illuminating toys she hadn’t remembered to put away and the cardboard boxes that were only half full. The glow cast long, dark shadows along the bare walls of her bedroom, like fingers that were reaching out to grab her. The longer she stared, the closer they seemed to come.

But she was a big girl. Mama said so.

Jenny wasn’t afraid of monsters in the closet. She wasn’t scared of the dark, or the creepy shadows that were coming alive.

She might be holding Butters a little too tight, and maybe she wanted to duck back under the covers and pretend that she hadn’t woken up at all, but she wasn’t scared. The room was just too quiet. It had been the lack of noise that forced her eyes open in the first place. She stared at her room, head poking out from under the blankets, trying to make herself get up and investigate.

Jenny carefully climbed out of bed, maneuvered around the boxes, and made her way to the door. With her heart pounding, she held her breath and listened hard, but the silence that had pulled her from sleep only grew louder. She hugged Butters tightly to her chest, burying her face into her stuffed rabbit’s fur.

“I can be brave,” she whispered. The words, her own private talisman, given by the bravest person she knew. “I am big, I am strong,” she said, even though she didn’t feel that way. Even though saying so felt like fibbing.

With shaking hands, Jenny opened the door and stepped out into the dark hallway. The space warped like the fun house mirrors she’d seen at the circus; the walls towering over her head and twisting around to close in on her. It kept growing and winding, spanning out until the end of the hall was miles away. Jenny stumbled back into her room. She wanted to take Butters and hide from the hall that she could no longer recognize. Instead, she took a step forward, her bare feet turning to ice on the cold wood floor.

“I am brave,” she breathed hoarsely. The quiet couldn’t swallow her whole. There were no monsters lurking behind the boxes or curled up behind the paintings lying on the floor. Claws were not going to come out of the shadows to tare at her nightgown and take her away.

Jenny closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped further into the hall. She kept her eyes shut, putting one hand on the wall to guide her. If she couldn’t see what was out there, then maybe she wouldn’t turn around and run back to bed. She didn’t want to run away. She wanted to be brave, just like mama.

It was hard making her way through the familiar space with her eyes closed. She kept bumping into things that had never been there before. But she didn’t stop. One step at a time, Jenny slowly made her way to the end.

“I am big,” she whispered into the quiet that seemed to gobble up her words.

“I am strong,” she said, feeding the silence as she blindly inched her way forward.

“I am brave.”

Jenny felt the wall disappear beneath her hands and pried her eyes open. She glanced back down the hallway and blinked. Standing at the other end of the hall, the space was dark, but everything had gone back to normal, and only the lingering silence remained.

She paused at the entry to the living room. There was a faint light that spilled onto the floor, and the quiet grew thunderous in her ears, beating along with her heart.

She was not afraid of monsters.

She was not afraid of monsters.

But Jenny was afraid.

She stepped into the living room, anyway.

Mama was on the couch staring blankly at the empty T.V. screen, with wide, unseeing eyes. Her body was moving back and forth slightly, like she was sitting on the rocker. But the rocker was gone. A lady took that away yesterday. Mama had smiled even though she looked all pinched when the lady thanked her for the bargain.

Jenny hadn’t liked the lady, or how sad mama got when she left. She didn’t like the house being boxed up or the people that kept coming and taking things away. She didn’t like Mr. Johanson knocking on their door and making mama upset. And, she didn’t like the way mama didn’t look like mama, staring at the tv with nothing on it.

She saw the papers then, scattered across the coffee table, white, and green and pink, with big bold letters that she couldn’t read. She hated the papers. They came in the mail or were tacked to the door. That was when their things started leaving, then mama started working more, and the quiet began to eat away at their house.

Jenny tried to make herself smaller, folding into the corner so that she could sneak back to her bedroom. She didn’t want to be brave anymore, she wanted to go back to bed. She wasn’t big, or strong. She was only six.

As she stepped back, mama’s head snapped up, freezing her in place with that stare. Jenny flinched. She wanted to run.

This was not mama.

This lady with eyes that couldn’t see her, she was a monster who had snatched her mama away. The monster blinked and Jenny watched as the fog cleared from its eyes and found her mama looking back at her. But it was still all wrong. Mamas’ eyes had filled with tears.

Jenny watched as her mother tried, unsuccessfully, to brush them away.

“June Bug,” mama said, her voice cracked and worn thin like Butters fur, in all the places her stuffed rabbit had been held too tight, “what are you doing up this late? You’re supposed to be in bed.”

Jenny didn’t have an answer. She wished she had been too afraid of the shadows and the monsters to get up and investigate the quiet. But she’d been brave. She’d managed to make it across her room with the scary hands on the wall. She’d kept going, even when the hallway was miles and miles long. She’d made it to mama all by herself. Her mama, who never cried or yelled. Her mama, who always knew what to do and what to say.

Mama was the bravest person she knew, and she wanted to be just like her.

Jenny padded over to the couch, climbed into her mama’s lap, and hugged her with all the strength she had. Mama shook beneath her, but Jenny held on tight.

“I don’t know what to do, June bug,” her mother whispered into her hair, arms tightening around her.

“I don’t know where we go from here.”

Jenny didn’t know either. She didn’t really understand, but maybe she could help.

She pulled back and placed a hand on her mother’s cheek, making sure to look into her eyes, just like her mother had done for her so many times before.

“You are big,” she whispered, “and brave, and strong.”

Mama’s eyes filled with more tears, and Jenny pushed on. “This is only for now. It’s not forever. Tomorrow will always be better.”

Her mother pulled her close, clutching her in the same way she was holding onto Butters. Mama cried long and hard but didn’t let go.

Jenny knew that tomorrow would be better. That this was not forever. She didn’t know how many more tomorrows it would take.

But she would be brave.