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monster in the closet | drabble
“Mommy, who’s Walter?”
The question knocks the wind out of my chest, and I swear there was a lump in my throat the moment it left her mouth. Lilah has never asked about her grandparents before, not her biological ones, at least. I had kept her hidden from the cruel reality that I spent most of my life living, because I never wanted her to know of my father or the evil that possessed him. I didn’t want her to know of the man that raped me. That beat me until I couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t want her to know of the man that I killed with no remorse.
“Why do you ask?” I ask her, my vision shifting from the road to the toddler sitting behind me. We were on our way to see Fergie at the pizzeria just like we had always done after I picked her up from daycare.
“The man in my room said his name is Walter.”
I swear I almost crashed the damn car, but I’m quick to draw my attention back to the road, trying my best to ignore the fear that sat in my belly. Shaky hands steer the vehicle, eyes moving from road to car seat frequently. “What man?”
“He’s nice, mommy! He comes in my room sometimes through my closet and plays with me. He likes playing barbies. And with my cars.” There’s an innocence to Lilah’s tone, a toothy grin spread from ear to ear as she looked out the window. She shows no sign of fear, though I’m terrified at her confession.
“Lilah,” I try to keep my voice calm, but it too is shaky. “Lilah.. what does Walter look like?” I’m almost too afraid to even ask, but there’s a part of me that hopes it’s her imagination or a weird coincidence.
“He’s got dark hair like you and daddy, and he’s old.. He kind of looks like you, but he’s got a furry thing on his lip,” her soft laughter fills the car, but I refrain from smiling. “He’s got something on his head… right here..” Her small finger pokes at the center of her forehead, and my heart sinks.
My mouth opens to speak, but no words come out. There’s a piece of me that feels defeated - I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my demons away from her forever, but I never imagined that she would find out about them like this. I never imagined my daughter would be haunted by the ghost of my deadbeat father.
“Mommy I think you’d really like him! He tells good jokes and makes me laugh, and -”
“Lilah, I don’t want you speaking to Walter anymore, okay?” I cut her off, eyes still moving from the road ahead of me to her face in the rearview. I so badly wanted to wrap her up in my arms and shield her from the evil that was trying to break through the pureness of her heart, but I didn’t know how.
“But why??? I like him!!” Her lips form a pout, and I wish I could tell her the truth. That Walter was a bad man. That he had no business being around her, dead or alive.
“Because, baby. He’s… he’s not real. He’s just someone in your imagination. Mommy just.. Doesn’t want you to get hurt, okay?” I know it was crazy, that my fear was irrational and that it was just my PTSD from the years of trauma I endured at the hands of Walter. He was dead, that I knew. He couldn’t harm Lilah even if he tried. But the thought of his ghost sitting in my home, watching me and my family as we slept, playing with my daughter when Fergie or I weren’t looking… It made the hairs on my neck stand tall.
“But he’s -”
“No, Lilah. No more. Please,” I say as I pull into the parking lot of the pizzeria. I didn’t know if I should tell Fergie, or if I should just wave it off as a child’s active imagination. Exhaling a sigh, my eyes close, and my mind tries to think of all the logical ways to bring it up in conversation, but I find none. My nerves are shot and I feel on edge, but I try to ignore the negative feelings that radiated through my body. I didn’t want to worry Fergie, not now. Leaning back against the driver’s seat, my eyes flutter open, and I put on a fake smile, turning to look at Lilah. “Lets get some pizza with Daddy, okay? And when we get home we can watch a movie. You can sleep in our bed tonight.”
It wasn’t much to ‘protect’ her - I knew that at the end of the day, there was no real way to stop Walter’s ghost from seeing my child. But I needed to do something, at the very least to ease my own damn mind. Her excited ‘Okay!’ and small giggle made a smile tug at the corners of my lips, and I try to match her enthusiasm, but all I feel is dread.
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