found the paper clips, closed the drawer, and went right back to sorting those checks as though nothing had changed, except I was doing it all with a shit-eating grin on my face.
My aunt and uncle will probably never notice it’s gone. The dates on the register were from a few months ago, so I doubt they’re using it anymore. They must think they’re beyond the laws of earth and man that they can just leave something like that lying around and not have it come back to bite them in the end.
You know what’s funny, Harvey—I used to think every word they said was true. When I was a little kid, I’d sit there in the pew on Sundays listening to my uncle preach about how our culture was a hotbed of sin. I’d cry on my way home from church, I was so scared of going to Hell and seeing the devil up close.
Then, when I was six, one of my sister’s friends told me the truth about Santa Claus—how it was all a story our parents made up to get us to behave. I didn’t believe her, so she showed me in the dictionary where it said Santa was a “mythical figure.” By then I was old enough to know that if the dictionary said it, it was true—which meant everyone had lied to me my whole life, even my mom.
Back then, I’d trusted my mom.
That’s when I first got suspicious about God. As far as I could tell, the way adults talked about God wasn’t all that different from the way they talked about Santa. Every week in Sunday school, it was always the same: you had to be good, because God was watching.
For years, every time I thought about that—and I thought about it every Sunday, and during Bible classes at school, too—I felt horribly guilty. I was sure someone would be able to tell and I’d get in trouble, so I started being extra careful. I did everything exactly the way I was supposed to. I followed along with every word of every hymn. I never passed notes in church, even when my friends were doing it. I never ate dessert during Lent, even on my birthday when my mom said it was okay to make an exception.
But I always thought Aunt Mandy knew I was hiding something. The way she looked at me made me nervous, even then. She and Uncle Russell didn’t have any children yet, and I suspected she didn’t like kids much. She’d refused to let any of us into her living room since my sister once finger-painted her drapes, and that was before I was born.
Then, in fourth grade, we had to make a diorama for Science about an animal that was mentioned in the Bible, and I went over to my aunt and uncle’s house to look up antelopes in their encyclopedias. Back then, our house was down the street from theirs, and we were allowed to go over without calling first. No one answered when I knocked, but since everyone in our neighborhood left their doors unlocked, I’d gone into my uncle’s office and found the encyclopedias. I took some notes, and I was packing up my stuff to head home when I realized I needed to use the bathroom.
I should’ve just waited until I got back to my house. If I’d only held my fucking pee and gone out the side door…
But I didn’t. I walked down the hall to the bathroom, past the spare bedroom at the back of the house. I heard some strange squeaking noises coming from behind the door, and I got scared. As far as I knew, Uncle Russell was at church, and Aunt Mandy was out shopping.
I don’t know what made me push that door open. Did I think there was a burglar? Did I think the house was haunted? Either way, what good did I think it would do if I walked in? It doesn’t matter now, I guess.
I pushed open the door and stood there, blinking. The room was dark, the shades drawn, the overhead light off. The squeaking went on for another second, then stopped.
I don’t know how long I stood there before I understood what I was