GregKoren
Epilogue
The story I’ve been telling you is a true story, but I don’t believe it happened.
For two reasons.
The first reason is, I don’t want to believe it happened. I don’t want to believe a stranger was hiding in the attic while I slept in my bed less than ten feet away. I just don’t.
My parents never believed it happened, either, because nothing was stolen and there was no evidence of a break-in. Mom was mortified that the police had been in “her” house, going through “her things,” and Dad was angry that we hadn’t “used our heads.” By that he meant, my sister Melinda and I had allowed our imaginations to run away with ourselves.
The second reason I don’t believe it happened is because Melinda was a liar. She lied all the time, to get into things and to get out of them, but mostly, I think, she lied to get attention.
She also liked to play games with me. For example, one time she used a knife to slash a seat on our school bus. The driver saw her do it. He reported her to the principal, who called our parents, who searched Melinda’s room for the knife. They couldn’t find it. But I did, right where she hid it: in the second drawer of my dresser, secreted among my socks.
For those two reasons, this story has become the central mystery of my life. Either I believe a man hid in the attic, or I believe my sister played a joke on me that scared me like nothing has since.
Either way, I never again slept with my back to the closet door. I never again thought of my house as my home.
It’s taken me years to come to terms with that day, and with the sister who would eventually tear my family apart with her self-destructive behavior.
Now when I think of Melinda, I chose to remember her in the moments before my desk chair fell, before the big bang that brought about such cataclysmic change. In my memory, she's fifteen years old and laying on the chaise longue, soaking up the summer rays, with the limitless blue sky reflected in her movie star sunglasses.
The End
Epilogue
The story I’ve been telling you is a true story, but I don’t believe it happened.
For two reasons.
The first reason is, I don’t want to believe it happened. I don’t want to believe a stranger was hiding in the attic while I slept in my bed less than ten feet away. I just don’t.
My parents never believed it happened, either, because nothing was stolen and there was no evidence of a break-in. Mom was mortified that the police had been in “her” house, going through “her things,” and Dad was angry that we hadn’t “used our heads.” By that he meant, my sister Melinda and I had allowed our imaginations to run away with ourselves.
The second reason I don’t believe it happened is because Melinda was a liar. She lied all the time, to get into things and to get out of them, but mostly, I think, she lied to get attention.
She also liked to play games with me. For example, one time she used a knife to slash a seat on our school bus. The driver saw her do it. He reported her to the principal, who called our parents, who searched Melinda’s room for the knife. They couldn’t find it. But I did, right where she hid it: in the second drawer of my dresser, secreted among my socks.
For those two reasons, this story has become the central mystery of my life. Either I believe a man hid in the attic, or I believe my sister played a joke on me that scared me like nothing has since.
Either way, I never again slept with my back to the closet door. I never again thought of my house as my home.
It’s taken me years to come to terms with that day, and with the sister who would eventually tear my family apart with her self-destructive behavior.
Now when I think of Melinda, I chose to remember her in the moments before my desk chair fell, before the big bang that brought about such cataclysmic change. In my memory, she's fifteen years old and laying on the chaise longue, soaking up the summer rays, with the limitless blue sky reflected in her movie star sunglasses.
The End