Her Closet Door

There was only one rule: don’t open the door.

It wasn’t a rule my father needed to tell me.

It was intuitive. From the night our mother left, her closet just frightened me.

But that’s not how it always was.

Back when she was with us it was my favorite place.

I remember playing hide and seek, crouching down under her long dangly dresses— how they hung almost to the floor and smelled of hyacinth. I remember trying not to laugh, as she searched the other side of the door.

And I remember her kneeling in the closet and scooping me up in her arms and nuzzling her warm nose against my cheeks and crooning how much she loved me and promising she’d never leave me…

Then my little brother was born and mom stopped playing. She stopped singing and laughing and her voice lost all its sweetness.

I yearned to climb into her arms again but she always pushed me away, and finally she broke her promise.

I don’t know where she actually went, dad only said she left us.

But I had this silly, childish notion that it was the closet that got her. Like a dog that turns on its owner out of the blue. I thought: mom went into that closet and then it snapped shut and swallowed her and she never came back.

Dad put a little hook and an eye latch on the door after that.

To stop the closet from getting us too, I thought.

But today I miss her so much my longing has overpowered my fear.

I’m gonna open it.

***

Nothing in here.

For a brief moment I could see her dangling dresses, almost see her swaying among them.

But there is nothing.

Only the faded smell of hyacinth.