The Halloween Children

by Brian James Freeman

  I was actually rooting for him. I mean, I was expecting Harris to mess it up, but I hoped he’d surprise me.

  Isn’t that what happens in the last stages of a relationship?

  You don’t want to admit it’s nearing the end.

  You can’t bear to think you’ve thrown so much of your life away.

  That’s why you don’t tell the other person it’s over.

  You fool yourself. You keep waiting and hoping they’ll do better, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary.

  “What are we going to do with you, little lady?”

  Harris moved closer to indicate he was in charge, which was good, but it was exactly the same question he’d ask when she spilled her drink or forgot to buckle her seatbelt in the car.

  That kind of shake-your-head bemusement didn’t set the appropriate tone for a serious talk.

  Amber just said, “I don’t know,” and wiped a stray tear from her face.

  Don’t let her manipulate you, Harris.

  “No time for crying,” he told her, and I was proud of him for a moment. “Nobody listened when that bird cried out. Birds can feel pain, you know.”

  Amber started bawling, then, at the thought of that poor bird. She’s always loved animals. Really sensitive.

  Her crying got so loud and out of control, it pretty much threw Harris off his game. He stammered, then went to get some Kleenex from the dresser. He apologized to her.

  Apologized!

  Such a sign of weakness. Harris practically looked ready to start crying himself.

  “Now stop, will you, honey?” He held a tissue to her nose while she blew into it. “We’re not gonna hurt you. Just tell us what happened. Did you or Mattie do it? Did you do it together? Maybe you didn’t mean for things to go this far. Sometimes you play a joke, without thinking it through. You didn’t mean to do it, did you honey? C’mon, tell us.”

  What kind of response did he expect now that he’d removed any threat from the get-go?

  We’re not gonna hurt you.

  (Yes, I’m mocking him in a singsong voice as I write this.)

  And then feeding Amber an easy excuse, so all she has to say now is “I didn’t mean it, Daddy” or “Mattie just thought it would be funny. I fixed the costume and he put it on the widdle para-tweet.”

  It would serve Harris right if I’d pulled faces behind his back while he questioned her. Rolled my eyes a few times or stuck out my tongue.

  Why not?

  His incompetence made a mockery of the whole situation.

  It’s almost perverse the way Harris forgets or ignores what I’ve told him about kids.

  Everything a parent says or does can have some lasting effect.

  Everything.

  If you pull back on enforcing rules, if you don’t apply meaningful consequences at every stage, then you’re teaching your children that mischievous, even evil behavior is acceptable—not just in the home, but in the world at large.

  That’s a pretty dangerous message.

  Amber looked straight at me, like she’d pretty much given up on her father having any sense at all.

  “I didn’t do anything,” she said. “But I’ll take my punishment. Whatever you think is right.”

  The punishment I had in mind was to grab her and shake her, like I’d wanted to do with Matt earlier.

  Shake her until she stopped crying.

  Shake the smug, innocent expression from the kid’s face until the truth rattled out.

  But that would have been wrong. The one I really wanted to grab and shake was their father.

  “Halloween is canceled,” I said.

  “Yeah, um, that’s right.” Harris trying to be forceful. “No candy or costumes. You mom told the same thing to Mattie, and I support her decision one hundred and ten percent.”

  Then he said something I didn’t expect.

  He said, “Amber, I want you to change that story you’re writing. It can’t be a Halloween story now. It needs to be nice. Considering what happened here today, we need you to write about something nice.”

  Not quite a save but rescued from the failing grade. He’d chosen a punishment that fit the situation. Turned the tragedy into an authentic “teachable moment.”

  But all in all, he had let me down again, which explains why I had to change my tactics.

  I visited a little home-security shop in a part of town I’ve never been to before and hope to never visit again.

  If anyone needs all of the home security they can buy, it’s the poor people who live around that shop.

  I purchased the smallest hide-a-cam they had.

  This sort of thing can be ordered from a hundred different websites.

  I’m on the computer all day, so I know my way around.

  I could easily find this kind of equipment online, then have it same-day delivered.

  But anything you buy on the Internet leaves a trail.

  I was afraid it would set off some red flag, put me on some kind of government watch list.

  I’m not a terrorist or a criminal.

  I’m just a concerned mom.

  Besides, no need for Harris to see a credit card bill for Uncle Ed’s Home Security Boutique and ask what that’s all about.

  If I never found anything, if our kids were the nice normal kids we’d all like to believe, there’d be no reason anybody would have to know about the camera.

  I wouldn’t ever have to tell Harris.

  Wouldn’t even have to write it down in my journal.

  This camera is so small that I won’t even know it’s there when I’m in the room.

  Sometimes you just have to be proactive to get things done, that’s all.

  So while the kids were at school, I hid the tiny battery-powered camera in their room.

  The lens was pointed to the area between their beds, so it could monitor the majority of the room.

  Setting everything up took some trial and error on my part since I had no instructions, but I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out poorly conceived programs thanks to my job, and eventually I discovered the camera was putting out a decent WiFi signal.

  I downloaded some software, and with a few clicks the computer was recording and storing the live feed from the camera.

  After that, it was a matter of waiting and biding my time.

  I didn’t need to wait long, though.

  That evening, the kids retired to their bedroom during family time.

  Since the computer was in the living room and I didn’t want Harris to know what I had done yet, I couldn’t watch the live stream, but the manufacturer’s website said twenty-four hours of footage would be stored on the computer.

  I continued through the evening routine like normal and then, after Harris fell asleep, I snuck out to the living room to the computer.

  I opened the software, which featured a giant magnifying glass on the logo screen, and began to fast-forward through the footage from the daytime when there was no one in the room.

  I stopped fast-forwarding when family time rolled around, the door opened, and the kids entered the room.

  I don’t know what I had been expecting, but there wasn’t anything alarming on the recording.

  After ten minutes, I almost turned the computer off.

  Both kids sat on the floor by their beds, their backs to the camera.

  Matt was reading a book and Amber was cutting some of her craft paper from the “Your Creative Kids!” kit we bought her last year.

  The kit was a little plastic suitcase that held all kinds of paper, tons of pens and markers and colored pencils, child-safe scissors, glue, tape, ribbons, various swatches of fabric, three types of glitter, rubber bands, and other materials for drawing, painting, and creating works of art.

  Remembering my argument with Harris, I felt pretty silly about my concerns.

  Actually, I felt worse than silly. What kind of mother spies on her children?

  Just as I was about to close the software and dele
te it from the computer, Amber handed something to Matt, who extended his hand and took it without ever turning his head.

  The knife certainly wasn’t from the “Your Creative Kids!” kit.

  The blade was way too sharp.

  What disturbed me was the casual way Matt used it.

  He was a small child holding a tool meant for a grown-up, so the proportions were awkward, but Matt’s arm sawed back and forth, his elbow lifting high with each arc.

  Next to him Amber mimed a similar motion in the air.

  From the angle, Matt’s body blocked what he was cutting.

  All I could see was Amber’s fascinated expression.

  The more I squinted at the low-resolution screen, the more I noticed things they shouldn’t have in their room. Halloween decorations, which I’m sure they haven’t created themselves.

  They look like the store-bought decorations from last year’s party.

  They knew I’d forbidden Halloween decorations, and they certainly knew better than to play with sharp, dangerous tools.

  And for a moment it made me think: These aren’t my kids.

  My kids would never do such things.

  Harris

  “It doesn’t prove anything about the Durkinses’ bird,” my wife said. “But it proves I was right to be worried.”

  “What it proves is that you’ve crossed the line.” Before my alarm had buzzed me awake, Lynn had shaken my shoulder and insisted I follow her into the den. She began pestering me to watch something on her computer, but the more she explained, the angrier I got. Matt and Amber were still asleep in their room, and I yelled almost loud enough to wake them. I couldn’t believe how badly Lynn had violated our kids’ privacy. “If they win, they win. You’re not allowed to cheat.”

  “It’s not cheating. We’re their parents.”

  “Kids still have rights. You need to play fair.”

  Admittedly, I made up a lot of these rules, based on how I felt as a child during various battles with my own parents. From my way of thinking, a kid has to have a decent shot at winning—maybe learn to bear up under questioning, keep the story straight. If your son or daughter passes the harsh interrogation, you can’t keep going back again and again until they break. You can’t go all Truman and Hiroshima on them with your punishments, either. And you can’t be all-seeing and all-knowing. It’s just not fair.

  What Lynn had done was hide a camera in the kids’ bedroom. She’d recorded them and stored the files on the family computer where anyone could find them by accident.

  She’d chosen some clips for me, but I refused to watch them. The program was open and displaying some still thumbnail images ready to be clicked on, but I wouldn’t look at the screen.

  “You need to know, Harris. You’re turning a blind eye.”

  “Stop it.” Now I was loud enough for the whole building to hear. “What you’re doing is wrong. I’ll have no part of it.”

  On one level, I understood my wife’s frustration. She couldn’t prove Matt’s guilt, and in her mind that didn’t mean he was innocent—it meant the boy was getting the better of her. Back when I was in middle school, my mom convinced herself my friends and I were smoking pot. She asked me again and again, she searched my jacket pockets when I got home from school; she practically tore my room apart one day, emptying dresser drawers and turning books upside down and shaking them over the carpet. All for nothing. Mom was so angry—when actually she should have been happy her suspicions weren’t confirmed. Instead, she decided her teenage son was too clever and liked me a little less for that.

  If my mom had spied on me, the outcome might have been different—but I don’t think that tactic would have been good for either of us. As I continually tried to get my wife to understand, kids need their privacy. They need to feel trusted, even (especially?) when they didn’t fully deserve that trust.

  I thought about that private detective who’d been spying on Joanne Huff. If Joanne was cheating her insurance company, that was certainly wrong. But it’s one thing to drive by her apartment once in a while, maybe sit at a bench across the street and peer over the top of a newspaper. It’s another thing to move into the apartment building to plant mechanical eyes and ears for around-the-clock surveillance. He was in her apartment, for all intents and purposes. Invisible. Uninvited.

  It was like he was haunting her.

  However that detective died, whatever happened to his body afterward…I was beginning to think he deserved it.

  “Promise me you’ll get rid of them,” I said. Meaning the camera and microphone, but for a moment Lynn blanched like I’d told her to get rid of the children.

  “Not yet,” she said. “I’ve almost got the answers I need. Another day or two.”

  How much time did she spend watching them? While she worked from home, she could keep a screen open on her computer—review the previous day’s coloring session, eavesdrop on their after-dinner conversations. Watch them sleeping in their beds.

  The idea sickened me, so I really lit into her, taking a moral high ground—which I didn’t usually do. “That’s the end,” I yelled. “It’s over.”

  “You don’t get to decide.”

  The tension between us was pretty thick. I imagined Mattie and Amber cowering in their rooms, fingers plugged in their ears, and finally I lowered my voice. “Look, I’m not the strictest parent in the world. That’s why you need to listen. If what you’re doing bothers even me, doesn’t that prove it’s bad?”

  “You’re no help in raising these kids,” she said. “I can never depend on you. Don’t think I didn’t see you yesterday, Harris. Don’t think I didn’t see you wink at him.”

  “What? No. When?” I held up my hands like I didn’t understand, then pointed to the side of my face. “I get a twitch sometimes.”

  Lynn took a deep breath. I half worried maybe she was going to hit me. She had that counting-to-ten expression, but at the four-count she spoke in a calmer voice, making what she considered was a reasonable request. “I want the key to Matt’s locked drawer.”

  “Oh, come on. Even if I had it—”

  “Nobody’s stupid enough to give a kid a lock without keeping a copy of the key. Not even you. Give it to me.”

  “You’re crazy.” Not the smartest thing to say, especially when your wife’s already on the edge of losing it. Her eyes went wide, mouth open with no sound coming out, but maybe some steam coming out her ears. “Crazy,” I repeated.

  Then I stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind me.

  —

  I hadn’t taken time to get my jacket and the late evening was pretty chilly. I moved briskly to keep warm, following one of my typical routes through the property.

  Times like this, I cleared my head just by walking. I wouldn’t think about work, my neighbors, my wife and kids. If I passed an outdoor lamp with a dead bulb, I didn’t make a mental note to replace it tomorrow; I didn’t count cars in the parking lots or wonder why the shades were drawn in unit 7C. All that mattered was the ground beneath, each shift from sidewalk to road, from grass to dirt path. My feet followed a memorized route, guided by vague cues in my peripheral vision. If I wanted, I could navigate parts of the property with my eyes closed. I’d even tried that a couple of times for short stretches.

  I want to address a notion most people have about handymen. Mainly, that we’re arrogant. We know how to fix things and think of all the residents as idiots who put metal forks in their microwaves, Kotex in their toilets, and comb their longest hairs into the shower drains. They break equipment regularly, as if they take perverse joy in ruining their living space.

  I’ve got a bit of that prejudice against tenants, I’ll confess. But there’s another repairman’s trait I’d never quite fallen into: I call it “the handyman fallacy.” It’s the mistaken sense that because you repair appliances or nail a few boards back in place, the buildings and various fixtures actually belong to you. You’re the artist, maybe, and the repairs are your signa
ture. In this mindset, when people break stuff, it’s like a personal affront: How dare you scratch this section of wallpaper, my wallpaper; how dare you overload my washing machines with your stinking clothes.

  I mean, sure, I’d judge people for being stupid. But if they wanted to break parts of their home, so they had to wait days or weeks for me to saunter by and fix it, that was their problem. Nothing for me to get upset about.

  Never had that arrogant sense of being everyone’s boss, of owning the place. What would be the point? We were all living in apartments. None of us owned anything, really.

  My pathways were the exception, though. Walking them, memorizing them, those routes became mine. That night’s particular path: Eleven steps on the sidewalk, then a detour between buildings 8 and 9, emerging with the park bench at the corner of my eye and our largest elm blocking the moonlight, and I crunched through fallen leaves until I hit the foot-worn path that led to a chain-link fence, one section bent back to create a shortcut to University Road. I turned, following the stretch of the fence, an easy path through everyone’s backyard, and if people glanced out their kitchen windows they might say “That’s Harris on his rounds,” or wonder how I could see without a flashlight, how I crossed uneven footing almost like I was dancing, or walking from stone to stone above the froth of a rushing river.

  As usual, the late-night walk calmed me. I wasn’t fighting with Lynn anymore, wasn’t worrying about our kids. Only the path.

  I closed my eyes for a moment.

  And I was lost.

  I froze, overcome with the horrible sense that my next step would be off a steep cliff. My foot would trigger a landmine, a bear trap would snap metal teeth into my ankle. A loose covering of grass would collapse and I’d fall into a pit lined with sharp wooden spikes.

  In the still night air a voice seemed to whisper like the rustle of leaves.

  Don’t leave them. Don’t leave them with her.

  Standing motionless, I was struck anew by the October chill. Why had that thought come to me? I’d fought with Lynn, didn’t like her idea of spying on the kids. The notion was unexpected and foreign to me, like a hazard placed along a familiar path. But otherwise she was a great mother. She’d never harm our children.