The Eye Unseen

by Cynthia Tottleben

  I didn’t move. The slight hope that I could always run while she was at work shattered as Mom pounded her way around the downstairs, nailing the windows shut, changing all of the locks. Installing new ones on the outside.

  Thwarting any escape.

  My stillness became stiffness and even Tippy begged me to move, jumping against my legs before attacking her water dish.

  “It was a great party,” Mom said after completing her chores. She gripped the hammer tightly, the look on her face daring me to give her an opportunity to use it.

  “Yes, it was lovely. I think we all had a good time.”

  * * *

  I jumped from bed, terror taunting me from sleep. I flipped over and encountered Mother, sitting by the edge of my bed, her eyes red and alive with an energy that made me want to scream.

  Her fingers stroked the wooden hammer handle, her knuckles pale as the moonlight that seeped under my curtains. Tippy laid beside her, cuddled against her thigh. Still trusting the woman who had fed her for the past six years.

  My eyes moved from dog to woman and I held my mother’s glare.

  “God loves you,” she said, standing. “Try not to forget that.”

  She left my room but not my head. Her face decorated my dreams. Each time I awoke it was all I could do not to roar and break the windows so I could flee the dreadful house.

  God might love me, but someone else loved Mom for sure. Someone whose name was so horrid that I dared not even think it.

  Chapter 4

  Joan

  You were supposed to be my miracle baby.

  Alex and I had planned to have another child. In fact, we had been trying for months. Ovulation became the code word for wanton sex, the lust we had for one another quelled only by our love for Brandy. If she was awake we would entertain her with a video tape and run off to the laundry room for six minutes of intense stain removal or, if we could hold off until nap time, twenty minutes of insanely quiet love making in our own bed.

  His parents had passed away when Alex was only eight. He had bounced through the foster system until the state emancipated him at seventeen.

  My husband valued family, wanted one of his own to cherish. I simply wanted to be surrounded by Alex. If that meant having more children who looked and laughed and told horrible knock-knock jokes like he did, then I was all for an enormous clan. Four kids with his chocolate curls? Glorious. A dozen, their hazel eyes shifting from brown to green, just like their dad’s? Nothing would have made me happier.

  “I drove by the cutest place today. Three blocks from a park, nice sized back yard, two car garage.” Alex told me one afternoon when he returned home from work.

  “Yeah? How much?”

  “Don’t know. I wanted to make sure you liked it, too. How ‘bout I take you and the kid to dinner and we can check out the neighborhood on our way home?”

  He wanted my opinion, but I could tell by the flicker in his eye that his mind was made up. Alex had great instincts and often made life-altering decisions on his gut feeling alone. I could tell that this was one of those occasions.

  “Which school district?”

  “Hammond. Which, I don’t have to remind you, is the best!” He dipped me so that I was facing Brandy and left me hanging backward while our daughter smeared peanut butter on my mouth with her kiss.

  When Alex lifted me back up he licked my lips. “No jelly, Brandy?”

  “Dad!” She ran over and clung to his legs.

  “Good to see you, too, Pumpkin!” Alex let go of my arms and reached down to pick up his little girl. “I think you got prettier while I was at work today.”

  “Of course I did,” Brandy announced, and we all laughed.

  My heart melted, watching the two of them together. Brandy resembled her father so much that I often wondered if I had anything to do with her creation at all. Watching my daughter’s eyes, I knew that she idolized this man almost as much as I did.

  Almost.

  We were a family full of promise back then, our house alive with the anticipation of growth and the strength of togetherness.

  At that moment you might have been a shimmer in my eye. Just being in a room with Alex made me all fluttery, my belly doing flops when he held me, my breasts so tender from his touch that I constantly felt pregnant. My husband used to tease me that we should buy stock in EPT, I purchased so many of the pregnancy tests.

  I waited for you. When the world crowded around me, when all was black and I could barely rise from bed, I longed to join you in your watery tomb and watch you develop into another little Alex. You could have been my miracle. You could have saved me from the sorrow, as it pressed in.

  Instead you were a leech on my life. Cumbersome and relentless. An incessant reminder of all that should have been, but never became. Sucking the life from my every bone as you grew and thrived.

  Chapter 5

  Lucy

  Silence startled me, at first. I whistled a lot and talked to Tippy while I worked, but once my mother came home and retreated to her room even the dog refused to make noise. The house was chilling. A tomb. I jumped each time a fly passed.

  During dinner Mom often discussed her work at the bank or the issues in town, how the flooding in Iowa would have ripple effects on the local economy.

  She spoke as though I were one of her colleagues, issued her daily robotic recitation of polite conversation.

  “So how does that affect the price of gas?” My questions were scholarly, impersonal, a vehicle to carry her conversation forward. Although I didn’t understand her motives, I cherished any time we had together that resembled normalcy.

  “It really shouldn’t. But in today’s market….” I listened intently, eager for words to fill the void that surrounded me.

  In Brandy’s absence, Mom and I had become civil. We did not joke, hug, or express much concern for one another, but the beatings stopped, and each night we ate at the kitchen table like two strangers paired up in a cafeteria.

  My sister became one of the topics we never discussed. One Sunday afternoon Mother slid all of our family photos off the walls, the dust outlines ghosts of the antique frames that once decorated the living room and stairway. The naked markers orphaned me. I sat on the landing, Tippy curled in my lap, my stomach churning as Mom carelessly dropped our pictures into the garbage can.

  Brandy and me with the Easter Bunny when I was three. Our hair long and perfectly combed, the dresses Mom made identical except for size. My sister had her arm wrapped around me, protectively. I remembered being terrified of the giant rabbit. In the picture you could tell I was trying hard not to cry, not to disappoint Brandy with my fear.

  Mom and Brandy when Brandy was a baby. Mom’s face beamed. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her so ecstatic.

  Dad at his high school graduation. I had spent hours studying his shaggy haircut and toothy grin, trying to find myself in him. To see if, just maybe, some bit of Dad swam in my cerulean eyes, or if he was the model for my rather pointed chin.

  My sister had the faintest memories of riding Dad’s shoulders at a summer parade, streaking through the yard while he sprayed her with the garden hose, his soothing voice reading to her as she fell asleep. How many times had I imagined myself in her place, feeling the warmth of this man I had never met but through her fragile thoughts?

  The three of them. Before Dad died, before I joined the ranks. Everyone smiling, Brandy forever caught with her mouth open during a fit of giggles. Mom pressed under Dad’s chin, her head balanced against his neck, Brandy held tightly on her lap. Although it was a lovely picture, it had always made me feel misplaced. I was forever on the outside, looking in at this happy family. I could put my finger on the dusty glass and touch them. But I could never be them.

  Glass crashed as the frames stacked up. Mom didn’t even hesitate as she pulled down the black and white photos of her parents, the grandparents I never knew, her own baby pictures.

  Why was she giving all her memories away?


  Mom suddenly looked at me as if she had had no idea I was there.

  “Go somewhere else. Go to your room. Go to the basement, I don’t care. Just stay away from me,” she growled.

  My movements were swift and silent. I had learned stealth from my sister and practiced it at all times now.

  Sitting in Brandy’s room, I tried to smell her. Her pillow contained a smidgeon of her scent, and I sucked it in, trying to imagine her life without me. I wondered where she was, if she had found a place to stay, a job, a new family. I couldn’t imagine her fear. The bravery it took to survive on her own.

  As I listened to Mom’s frustration grow, I quietly crept back into my room. Mom didn’t need the aggravation of finding me on Brandy’s bed.

  While I waited for her anger to settle, I realized that no one had ever come to ask about me—not the police, not the school, not even Reverend Baxter from church. Brandy had been gone long enough now that someone should have come after me.

  I swallowed my heartache and tried not to give way to tears. My sister was dead, smashed like the photos in the trash bin. She had to be. Brandy would have told. She never would have left me alone like this.

  With Mother.

  * * *

  I pilfered. I knew it was wrong, taking things from the house and hiding them in my closet.

  The adventure began with my sister’s tablets from school. I stole two from her bedroom and added them to my bookshelf. Then, when Mom didn’t notice, soon more of Brandy’s possessions became my own.

  Her knitting needles and the pile of half-started projects she had in an old box under her bed slid easily under my box springs. An old pair of jeans I was certain my sister couldn’t even wear became mine. Her orange-and-white nail buffer. A ceramic kitten that I strategically placed on the window sill, in the corner behind my curtains.

  From the bathroom I took a few aspirin, some cough drops, band aids and added them to the pockets of my dressier clothes that hung unused. Then boldness settled in and I started to lift things throughout the house.

  Small things, at first. Food. Kleenex. The Lois Lowry books Brandy had left behind.

  Then my priorities changed. I cut through the thin sheath covering my box springs and started a collection of goods that I tucked up under my bed. Water bottles, snack foods, a flashlight that I found under the bathroom sink. Brandy’s barrettes and the stuffed rabbit, Bernie, from her bed. Pencils. Lots of colored pencils.

  Sometimes I felt like a feral cat, chasing after anything whimsical while also keeping my eyes peeled for fresh food.

  Old Mom never returned. I liked to imagine that Brandy had stolen her away, could picture the two of them strolling down city streets in Phoenix, talking about the harvest weather back home and how they never missed it.

  Or me.

  My sister hadn’t been gone three weeks when everything changed again.

  I had become complacent. Not content, not slacking in my chores, still tiptoeing around Mother. But as each day passed without a steady threat of violence, I eased out of the fortress I had built around myself. Let the walls down. Found pleasure in life’s small moments.

  Tippy and I took to singing loudly while I pressed Mom’s work clothes or prepared dinner. We boogied about the kitchen, sometimes even daring to flash through the living room in a bold ritual dance of our own creation, striking bizarre poses and chanting while we dusted or ran the vacuum.

  Sometimes we just needed to burn off a bit of pent up energy and smooth out our edges. Tippy never argued with my decisions to run amok while Mom was at work.

  Perhaps she should have.

  I had the dog in my arms, waltzing by the head of the dining room table, when Mom came home sick from work. She didn’t drive all the way to the back of the house as was her habit. Instead she parked near the front and collected the mail. Mom startled me when she stepped into the living room; I was so wrapped up in my mid-morning talent show that I hadn’t even heard her key in the lock.

  For an instant I was relieved that the person entering our house was Mother.

  Until I saw the look on her face.

  She swung the door shut with such force I thought for certain the windows would crack.

  “How dare you!” Mother screamed. Red streaks shot up her neck, settled in her cheeks.

  “We were just dancing.” My defense was lame.

  “Dancing? So close to the windows that I could see you from the road?”

  I noticed the part in the curtains, the sunlight that stopped right by my feet. Mom’s brow creased and turned such a dark shade of red that I thought she might have a heart attack before she ever took off her coat.

  “I didn’t realize…I’m sorry, Mom.” I knew the apology would do no good.

  “You didn’t know? How could you NOT know?”

  The coat came off. Mother dropped it into the recliner and came at me so fast I almost fell over. Tippy jumped out of my arms and fled the room without so much as a goodbye.

  “Don’t you get it, Lucy? Don’t you understand that I don’t want people to know you still live here?”

  I had understood that for quite some time now, though I was loathe to admit it.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever thought how much happier I’d be if you were really gone?”

  Mom backed me into the corner. When the wall stopped me, my heart fell. After the shed incident I no longer tried to run from my punishments. But I still wanted to have that option. This time I knew I was trapped.

  I tried to maintain eye contact but instead found myself cowering. Her words pained me almost as much as her fists.

  “Go to your room. Don’t come out until I say you can.”

  I rocketed away, Tippy quick to follow. We bolted into my room and shut the door.

  * * *

  That evening Mom allowed me downstairs for dinner. After running to the bathroom, I fed Tippy and then joined Mom at the table for a somber meal.

  She had calmed down but her unpleasant mood lingered.

  “I’m sorry you don’t feel well,” I said, trying to start a conversation.

  “If I wanted to speak to you, I would. You’re lucky I let you out to eat.”

  For an instant I stared at the steak knife in her hand, the glint it made under the lights attracting my eye. I wanted it. My heart jumped a beat as I realized that I had been assembling the wrong types of things in my box springs.

  I shook that thought out of my head. Mom might be crazy, but my idea was even worse, lusting after that blade like I might have to use it against her.

  My cheeks colored with shame.

  I finished my meal and sat politely, waiting in the quiet for her to do the same.

  * * *

  My eyes flicked open when Mom started working on my door. I had been sleeping for hours and thought her rage had finally dissipated.

  I was wrong.

  Tippy jumped off the bed but ran back up with me when she felt the waves of anger radiating off Mom.

  “I wouldn’t get upset if I were you. You made your own choices. I trusted you, and you shit on that trust.”

  In my sleepiness, I hadn’t even really pieced it together. I watched Mom with the hook and eye lock and realized that she intended to trap me in my bedroom.

  “Mom, I’m sorry! It was a mistake! I didn’t know anyone could see me!” I sat up but had to put my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

  “You knew exactly what you were doing. You were flaunting it. Why didn’t you just stand right in front of the windows and let the world know you’re still here?”

  “I was just playing with Tippy. I wasn’t paying attention to the windows like I should have.”

  “And it has cost you. Big time.”

  The tears came and amplified my shame. I hated breaking down in front of her.

  “Please, Mom. Please don’t do this to me. I’ll be good, I promise. I won’t leave the back of the house.” I gave my best effort, but it only angered
her more.

  “You and I both know that this would have happened sooner or later. I’ll get a dead bolt tomorrow.”

  With a quick slam of the door, Mom sealed me in. I heard her click the temporary lock into place and clung to Tippy while fear roiled inside me.

  Panic made the room spin. I found it difficult to breathe, to even open my eyes and acknowledge my surroundings, the four walls that barred my exit. The flowered wallpaper that seemed to smile and ridicule me, its captive.

  I put my hand on my battered white nightstand and tried to regain my balance. Looked across the room at its older sister, the matching dresser, furniture I’d had as long as I could remember. Besides Tippy, these were the only things to keep me company now that I was locked inside. I didn’t even have so much as a picture of Brandy to lend me comfort as Mom’s steps creaked down the hallway toward the stairs.

  But at least this time it wasn’t the shed.

  * * *

  Mom was thoughtful enough to come home for lunch every day after that.

  While she let Tippy out for a run across the yard, I was allowed bathroom time. By then my bladder was so close to exploding that I almost had to crawl to the toilet for fear of peeing myself in front of Mother.

  While she was busy with the dog, I refilled my cache of water bottles and snuck them back into my bedroom.

  We ate sandwiches or sometimes soup, had iced tea and fruit. Once Mom developed a routine it rarely changed, so day after day we consumed the same meals. I wished I hadn’t lost my privileges and could still be the one in charge of cooking.

  “You have fifteen minutes,” Mom would say each day.

  I ate standing up, leaning against the sink. She could not have cared less; she was absorbed in her newspaper, ignoring me as usual. But from my vantage point I could see the world outside our windows. The road. The wall of corn, frail and yellowed from the weather, ready for harvest.