It always amazes me how the sound of little feet wakes me instantly. I hear them now and it’s the middle of the night. I get up, turn the light on and almost fall over a whimpering Linus. I pick her up and she’s crying “manny causit…manny causit, Mom.” I hold her and tell her there’s no man in the closet…it’s a bad dream.
He sits up and squints in the harsh light. “Now what?” he says irritated. “It’s just a bad dream, she’ll be fine.” I try to calm everyone.
“Manny causit Dad,’ pipes up Linus.
“What?”
I try to explain that she thinks there’s a man in her closet. To my surprise he says “Is there?” I look at him like he’s an idiot. “Why would there be a man in her closet?” He looks at me like I’m disgusting “Maybe that’s where you hide your boyfriends.” I could just scream. How can he do this…Taking a little girl’s innocent nightmare, turning it into something even uglier. He has no sense of anything beyond himself…
I take my broom, give Linus her little broom and we head to the bedroom to get rid of “Manny Causit.” At first she’s scared, but when she sees me sweep, poke, step in and out, she thinks it’s a game. She does the same with her broom exclaiming “Manny all gone!” I don’t want her to become afraid of the closet. It’s still our safe place. She hops back into bed and in no time she’s asleep. I go back to bed, waiting to find out what he has to say now. But he’s asleep and I try to rest.
He really has given his notice at work and tomorrow is his last day. I’m getting an ulcer thinking about it. When he got home from work today, he started on Linus right away. “Did Mommy hide a man in the closet?” he says sweetly. Oh dear God…there has to be an end to this somewhere… before I lose my mind… Linus, who no longer remembers her bad dream, looks at him in confusion. “Tell Dad…did Mommy put a man in your closet?” She runs to me and cries “Dad say manny causit!” I tell her there’s no manny causit, that Dad is just playing. “No manny causit Dad,” she repeats and Boo right behind her “no causit…” I give him his dinner, bathe them and off they go to bed. We say a prayer for the angels to take care of them while they sleep. When I return, I tell him he doesn’t need to scare the little ones. “They don’t need to have a fear of closets, like you,” I tell him. Where will I hid them then…
There’s a light of recognition in his eyes. When he was child, they lived in a house with a connecting closet between two bedrooms. He and his brothers, Robbie and Junior, were running around playing tag. They went into the closet, from their room, and out through their mother’s bedroom. By the time Jonathan came through, the stranger in bed with his mother had time to get up and grab his belt. The buckle caught Jonathan across the face and shoulders. The blood traumatized him even more. The stranger beat him and his brothers, even though he’d never seen them before. Jonathan never forgot or forgave…
He sits quietly and I see a little boy with such pain in his eyes. Instinctively, I get up and hold him… And he lets me…
Next -> Return of the Madness
Tags: bad dream, innocent nightmare, man in her closet, stranger in bed with his mother