Hot vinyl seats in June stick to the back of my legs, causing me to recoil immediately. Unbearable for most, I find it nostalgic. It’s funny the things that imprint upon us from childhood. Apple honey pancakes on Sundays, the texture of the camel-colored vinyl seats of dad’s caravan, the way the oak floors creaked under foot. They were the things I was excited to share with my younger brother the gloomy September 9th day our parents brought him home from the hospital. Alexander Fulgencio Alcantar-Ramirez was his full name. But he was always Affy to us, a nickname he gave himself when he was seven. He only knew a few words his second-grade year, but Affy was the one he uttered the most.
Affy came home with rules, too many rules for my seven-year-old brain to fully comprehend. He wasn’t like most little brothers, or at least the little brothers my classmates had described. He was delicate, fragile even, like the heirloom figurines that adorned the top shelves of mom’s bookcase. Just like those figurines, he was quiet, doll-like almost. In fact, the first time I ever heard him cry was during my eighth birthday party, sending both my parents into a wild frenzy of laughter and tears. My tears never warranted that response from my parents. But like mom said, Affy was special.
Some days Affy would dart from room to room for hours, his balance always off, which became more worrisome as he got older. His awkward off kilter gait often sent him into bookshelves or over coffee tables. His words were much like his footsteps – short and punchy – straight to the point, and oftentimes brutal. He would yell out a guttural, “No,” with no explanation towards things he didn’t want. Showers, long sleeve shirts, hugs: these were a few of his least favorite things. But he wasn’t remembered for the things he disliked, but rather the things that caused his perfectly round face to illuminate like a glow-worm, like his favorite snack, overripe bananas.
One of the things that I admired most about Affy was the way he found such pure wonder in the most mundane objects. Empty cardboard boxes could zoom him to space. Top-bunk stuffed toys became hearty crews of treasure-hungry pirates. The basement was simultaneously filled with boundless possibilities and unknown terror, a place only the bravest of souls (or those with laundry baskets filled with clothes begging to be cleaned) dare to go. The most exciting item for Affy was a blue damask print tablecloth, the one mom put on the table every other Sunday when she hosted the family dinner. The one that dad was reprimanded for spending way too much money on the year Grandma and Grandpa Alcantar came to visit from San Diego. The one that I accidentally permanently stained with red chile that dripped from my plate. The one that spent most of its life imperfectly folded in the linen closet in the middle of the hallway.
I wasn’t sure if Affy was so fixated on the tablecloth because everyone else appeared to hold our singular table cloth in such high regard. Or if it was the fact that the bold, repetitious royal blue damask print was somehow satisfying. What I knew about the tablecloth was that if the linen closet was slightly ajar, Affy was ready to play.
He would stand in the corner of his room, draped in the tablecloth like a miniature ghost, waiting to hear my footsteps across the creaky floorboards that seemed to announce my entrance into his room.
“Come find,” he would fight to say over an uncontrollable giggle, with an innocence that was unmatched.
“Oh no, where did Affy go?!” I would play, searching beneath his bed, or amongst the pile of soft toys in the corner of the room. His laughter would crescendo as I drew near. “Is he over here?” I would shout as I pulled back multicolor dinosaur print curtains to reveal nothing but wall and a peak of laughter from underneath the table cloth. “Is he here?!” I would snap suddenly as I threw open closet doors, ushering a hushed “no, no, no,” from the giddy child under the table cloth. Finally, I would grab the bottom of the tablecloth, and all at once toss it up, high over his head, revealing Affy screaming in delight, his eyes twinkling like a Christmas display.
“You, you, you,” he would say, tossing the table cloth on me, making sure my head was covered before he ran from the room. I would tilt my head to create the right level of transparency through the table cloth as I slowly followed him from the room. I would find myself in the same spot, tucked next to the curtains in my room, waiting for Affy to find me. It always took him a long time to locate me, even though I hid in the same spot every time. I tried hiding somewhere else once, but eventually gave up after ten minutes or so of standing in the tub as thoughts of Affy getting into something he shouldn’t would infiltrate my mind. Typically, I would survey the house to find Affy playing with magna tiles on his bedroom floor because he couldn’t find me. Eventually, he would enter my room with heavy steps. I remember I always thought that he walked like he was wearing swimming flippers on a sandy beach. He would audibly shush himself as he got closer to me, hoping to surprise me.
“Find you!” he would yell as he pulled the tablecloth off of me and ran out of the room, the damask print bounding behind him like a superhero cape. The game would continue for hours, consuming our weekends with hours of endless laughter. It was his favorite past-time, and it was the only time that I felt like I truly understood Affy, and that Affy truly understood me.
As I got older, Affy always seemed to stay the same age. Our weekend traditions remained intact as I went through middle school, and into my freshman year. Every day I would pick him up from school, waiting along the chain link fence, under the shade of the third pine tree from the main entrance, as he would dart from his classroom to greet me. We would walk home, engaged in a very one-sided conversation of me asking what he learned, and if he made any new friends. He would say he made friends, but according to Mr. Graves, he spent most of his day by himself, afraid to socialize with his peers.
I gave up most things to stay home and play with Affy: friends’ birthday parties, club soccer that my friend’s dad coached. I understood that I wasn’t only his older brother, but also his only friend. It was a badge I wore with honor and pride. I would be lying if I said the game wasn’t boring. I could only hide in the same spot under the same table cloth every Saturday and Sunday for years on end before becoming exhausted with the game, but it was for Affy, and for him I would do just about anything.
The decision to begin considering my future needs drew a strong sense of guilt as I met with a guidance counselor during my first week of high school. My friends all seemed to know exactly which universities they wanted to attend upon graduation, and knew exactly which extracurriculars they needed to participate in order to draft the perfect admissions transcript.
“University of Michigan,” Ms. Salazar announced, impressed by my choice, her eyes glinting behind her rectangular framed glasses resting happily on her rosy cheeks. “For an out of state candidate, you’re going to keep that high GPA, an impressive collection of extra-curriculars, and some volunteer opportunities outside of academia to show that you are a well-rounded student.”
“My brother is special-needs,” I quickly offered up, as if that would somehow satisfy all the prerequisites alongside my outstanding GPA. “I take care of him on the weekends, and pick him up after school.”
Her face tightened with a smile. “That’s sweet,” she silently smiled for a moment. “That’ll look great in an admissions essay.” The way she boiled his entire existence down to something that would look good on an admission essay made my stomach churn, as if I was somehow forsaking Affy by even being in this meeting. “Maybe you can enroll in some volunteer opportunities with your brother on the weekends, like support groups or group outings?”
I quietly brainstormed, thinking of ways to work around my brothers crushing social anxiety. That would never work as a volunteer opportunity.
“You’ll also need to maintain a healthy presence on campus. Go to events and gatherings,” she urged. “Demonstrate that you can be an active member of a community.”
“I have a lot of friends,” I tried to wipe away any insinuation that I was a loner.
“I don’t doubt that,” she chuckled. “But do you do things with those friends?”
I ruminated on that. Outside of school, I’ve somehow seemed to talk my way out of every invitation to every party, swim meet, barbeque, gathering, and event my friends invited me to. How I kept getting invited to anything was actually really surprising to me.
After the meeting, I decided that I needed to take control of my social life a little more. I loved Affy with every fiber of my being, but in this moment I needed to give myself the space to love me and what I wanted for my future more.
I asked a couple of my closest friends who also held sky-high academic goals to hang out after school. I figured that if I needed to socialize, I might as well socialize with a couple of friends who could help point me in the right direction. We were going to hang old-school. At the mall, with an over-sized cinnamon roll and an intensely sweetened boba tea.
I texted my mom and asked her to pick Affy up from school that day.
It was a Tuesday.
“Read, 8/28 12:15 pm”
2:15. I still hadn’t heard from mom. I sent another message. “?”
“Read, 8.28 2:18pm.”
Mom was ghosting me.
I grew frustrated. Every day throughout middle school and into high school, I prioritized picking up my brother and spending the majority of my free time keeping him entertained. She couldn’t be bothered to respond to one of my text messages? Even if she would’ve said no, I would’ve rescheduled with my friends, but to be completely ignored?
Hanging out with my friends became less about necessity, and more about principle at that point.
The mall was nothing to remember. The boba was overly sweet, and the cinnamon roll was overly sized. I didn’t buy anything, and neither did my friends. We discussed our goals and we talked about girls. Apparently they thought Kyra from homeroom had a crush on me. I hadn’t noticed.
At 3:30 my mom called.
Out of spite, I ignored her call.
We continued our jaunt around the mall, popping in and out of stores only to joke about school happenings and movies we had watched.
At 3:35 mom called again.
At 3:35 I ignored her call.
I put my phone on do not disturb and took this time for myself. There wasn’t anything uniquely special about the mall that day, but to me, it was the first time that I felt free. Free from responsibility, free from expectations, and free from familial obligations. To me, that was the most free I had ever felt. The guilt of not picking up Affy from school that day subsided, and more than ever I felt like I would be able to create the perfect image of a Michigan bound student. Academic, civically minded, and social.
At 6:30 I said goodbye to my friends and took the long walk home. I walked along the arroyo, shaded from the setting sun by hearty cottonwood trees, their falling cotton floating in the breeze like snow. I began to picture what post-graduation life would be like. Packing up the car, saying goodbye to Affy, and moving my world to Ann Arbor. I would study pre-medicine, then I would apply to medical school where I would study pediatrics. After I graduated from medical school, I would specialize in medical care for children like Affy, taking the fear out of coming to the doctors office.
I rounded the corner of our street, the streetlights were on at this point, cutting the bluish twilight with cones of white light. Moths congregated under the tree lights. I could see my house at the end of the street, a sight I had seen a million times. This time, however, something seemed off. All the lights were on at the front of the house, the way they would be when my parents deep cleaned on a weeknight… the weeknights before family came to visit on weekends.
But that couldn’t be it. It was Tuesday.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, and turned off the do not disturb feature.
My phone vibrated as notification after notification appeared filled my screen. Missed call after missed call, separated by text messages from mom and dad, even unknown numbers. My stomach churned.
I looked up at the house again.
Something was wrong.
I could feel my veins in my body tighten, my muscles clenched. A searing heat shot up my spine and flushed my face as I broke out into a sprint towards the home, ignoring the missed notifications on the phone. The front of my body from my lips to my toes went numb, and I nearly felt like I was about to collapse with each step.
I shot through the yard, and threw open the door. I rounded the corner of the entryway into the dining room, my heart pounding.
There, at the table was my mom, still in her work blazer and slacks, her head buried in her arms. Behind her was my father, his eyes swollen and red. Next to them both was a woman in a pantsuit, her hair pulled tightly into a bun that sat low on her head. In her hands was a metal clipboard, and on her face was a look of condolence.
“Where’s Affy?” I muttered, slightly louder than a whisper. The words felt like they were shaken out of me, spoken as if I already knew the answer.
Mom lifted her head from her arms. “Where were you?”
My head was spinning. I desperately tried to pick the words out of the whirlwind of thoughts that filled my mind.
“Where’s Affy,” I repeated myself, this time with a little more body in my voice.
My mom collapsed again into her arms, her sobs carried by a pain that pierced every part of my body.
“Where’s Affy?” I screamed, “Where is he?”
The police officer looked up from my grieving mother, “there was an accident.”
“No,” I whispered. I began shaking my head and my hands, as if I was somehow warding off the biggest misunderstanding.
“No, where’s Affy.” I ran to his room, only to find it completely empty. This couldn’t be happening, he has to be here. He’s always here. I called for him. “Affy,” my calls turned to screams. “Affy!”
He must be playing our game. That’s what makes the most sense right now. He’s playing. He made it home, and was so mad at me that he decided to hide really well this time. He’s playing! I consoled myself and began to laugh. “He’s playing,” I announced. “He has to be.”
Dad rounded the corner as I opened the linen closet, his arms clung around me and held me tighter than he had ever held me before.
There, folded in finality, was the blue damask tablecloth.
Affy’s memorial was held on his birthday, September 8th. It was a small gathering of family and family friends. Everyone in disbelief. With every condolence offered, I couldn’t help but hear whispers of blame. After the service, his ashes took up a space on the mantle next to a small altar of photos that memorialized his short life on earth. A new type of guilt took a space on my shoulders.
An autumn had never felt so still, nor a winter so quiet. The spring gave way to summer, the changing seasons were the only indication that time was in fact still moving. Inside the Alcantar-Ramirez home, everything remained still and quiet. Family dinners were now denoted by different meals for different people in different rooms watching different shows. My parents went to work, and I went to school. That was as much as we knew about each other in that year’s time. My parents were wrong when they told me Affy was fragile, like the heirloom figurines on the top shelf. We were the fragile ones, and losing him shattered us into a trillion irreparable pieces.
September 8th rolled around. It was his birthday. I don’t think he ever fully understood why birthdays were special, but he knew he loved cake, and on that day the cake was his favorite flavor, his favorite color, and depicted whatever his favorite toy was the week it was ordered. And that cake was cut up and served after we ate his favorite dinner: pepperoni pizza, but with all the pepperoni removed upon delivery.
This year there would be no cake.
I took the long walk home from school. On one side was an arroyo filled with muddy waters of the Rio Grande. On the other side, a thick forest of cottonwoods. We took Affy on a hike here once. He always hated nature, but he loved when the cottonwoods would shed their tufts, spinning around us like we were characters in a snow globe.
I took a moment to take in the dazzling cotton fall. Affy would’ve laughed for hours if he saw how much cotton seemed to fall from the sky.
My eyes followed the tufts to the ground. To the thicket on the other side of the arroyo. To the blue damask pattern the popped between the brush.
I rubbed my eyes. That couldn’t be right – I refocused my eyes on the spot. The pattern was gone, just an old tarp that had been torn by the elements behind an sagebrush remained.
Affy’s birthday went without celebration this year. It was quiet, as the rest of the year had been. Our family tip-toed around each other almost better than we had tip-toed around acknowledging that it was Affy’s birthday. One by one our food delivery services dropped off our dinners, and one by one we went to the different corners of the house. Dad found himself perched in front of the television in the living room, and mom retired to her bedroom. I took my slice of room temperature pizza to my room and began removing the pepperoni slices. I would normally work on an assignment, but tonight I had a dinner date with my conscience as I sat with the guilt that had been shackled to me since that night.
I lost my appetite.
I rolled my shoulders and drew in a deep breath. I sat upright in silence with my eyes closed. I tried to imagine what Affy would be like this year. Maybe this would’ve been the year he made friends or learned how to tie his shoes? Maybe this would be the year he would hide in the guest room for once during hide-and-seek, or maybe even conquer his fear or the basement? With a sigh, I opened my eyes and rolled my neck. Outside the window, standing in the middle of the backyard was a figure. A figure draped in a blue damask sheet.
I quickly batted my eyes, trying to regain focus.
The figure remained.
I shot to the window, pulling myself as close as I could to the glass. As sure as the trees behind it, the figure was standing in the yard.
I stood frozen. My heart began to pound. We both remained motionless, I stared at the figure, and the figure stared at me. My fear turned to bewilderment. My bewilderment turned to anger. I remained perfectly still.
The figure tilted its head to the right.
Its sudden motion ignited an explosion within me. I darted from my perch in my window, and within what felt like 3 strident steps, I was at the sliding glass door at the end of our dining room.
I threw open the door to reveal an empty backyard.
The figure had disappeared, but my anger remained. I knew what I saw, and what I saw was someone trying to make light of something they clearly didn’t understand. I slammed the glass door shut and ran back to my room. I could feel the emotion within me building up pressure like a geyser. I slammed my bedroom door, collapsed on my unmade bed, and screamed into my pillow. I screamed until every ounce of pain in me was numb. I screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore. I screamed until I sobbed. And then I sobbed myself to sleep.
The next day after school I came immediately home. I didn’t take the long way. I didn’t stop to talk to friends – talking to friends was something I had actively avoided for a year now.
I went directly home.
Upon arrival, I dropped my bag on the ground, and nestled myself into the oversized plush leather lounger my dad had purchased the year before. It was so big it made me feel like a small child. I turned on the television, the sound of mid-afternoon court dramas filled the room.
I hate courtroom television. But today I hate the silence more.
I sat and watched siblings and fallen-out friends bicker about television sets and unsettled debts in front of callous and cynical television judges. I let the minutiae of their lives entrance me into a nearly catatonic state.
My daze was broken by a gentle movement in my periphery. The movement of a curtain blowing in the breeze, or one of the gowns mom used to wear on hot summer days. I turned to satisfy the notion that nothing was there before returning to my daze.
Over the cold deliberation of the judge, I heard a noise. It was equally unfamiliar and all too familiar at the same time, like a song you hadn’t heard in years, or the smell of the pancakes dad used to make when you were small. It was a creaking sound. Not the creak of a floorboard, but the creak of hinges. The creak of hinges being opened.
I muted the TV.
I slowly turned my body to face the direction of the sound as my mind raced. So many times I had wondered what I would do if someone ever broke into the home while I was here, what I would say. Would I run? Or would I stay and fight? I waited for any confirmation that this was that moment.
My eyes remained fixed on the hallway. I fought the urge to say something, to announce my presence. I knew my shaky voice would tell the intruder I was vulnerable.
The snap of a floorboard sent me careening out of the chair and across the living room.
My back landed solidly against the wall.
My eyes fixed on the hallway.
“Get out of my house!” I screamed into the void.
Silence responded.
I tensed my chest to steady my breathing.
My heart throbbed with a ringing in my head as I stood frozen in fear. As my senses began to return, I quickly looked around for an object, something blunt, something heavy. My eyes settled on a fire prod nestled next to the fireplace. My quaking hands steadied as they firmly gripped the handle.
I made my way into the hallway.
I walked slowly, listening carefully for movement, a voice, breathing that wasn’t my own. I avoided the creaky planks I had discovered while playing hide and seek with Affy. I moved slowly trying to keep too much pressure off the floor boards. I held the fire prod like a baseball bat, ready to strike.
As I turned into the hallway, I noticed something I hadn’t seen in a while. In a year to be exact. Halfway down the hall, just past the bathroom, the door to the linen closet jutted boldly from its frame, blocking the hallway behind it.
I approached, tightening my grip. I quickly lunged to see what was behind the door, ready to smash the intruder with my weapon, but no one was there. I quickly peered through the closet to see if anything was askew. The assortment of towels and bed sets laid perfectly in place, each one perfectly folded in the pristine way Dad folds them. There wasn’t anything out of place.
Anything except for the blue damask tablecloth.
Who would break into a home to steal a tablecloth? To steal that tablecloth.
A chill ran down my spine. A lump grew in my throat. I realized I was no longer protecting myself from an intruder.
I was playing a game of hide and seek, and it was my turn to hide.
I set the fire prod down on the ground next to the linen closet, and cautiously stood back up. I closed the closet door and leaned against the wall. My eyes began to well with tears as I tried to make sense of my suspicions.
My mind raced with all the things that I could say, all the things I wish I could’ve. I wanted to scream how sorry I was for leaving him all alone, for not being there by his side when he needed me. I wanted to tell him all the things that happened over this last year, that we love him and miss him. I want to ask for his forgiveness and know that he isn’t mad at me. But above all else, I want to hide.
“Find me,” I called out.
My body began to move, almost as if it was programmed to do so. I wanted my body to move quicker, but it moved slowly and rigidly like a scared wind up toy from the hallway into Affy’s old room.
My heart was beating so heavily it caused my entire upper body to sway with each beat.
I drew in a deep breath.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
I found the spot beneath the curtains where Affy used to hide.
I turned my back to face the door, pushing my back solidly against the curtains. I wanted to see him when he walked through the door.
I heard footsteps approach the door. They sounded heavy, firmly planted and evenly spaced. They didn’t sound like him. Then again, the footsteps sounded a lot like the ringing beat my heart pounded in my ears.
The ringing in my head stopped and so did the footsteps.
The world was still.
Trying to give my mind an escape, I anxiously wrapped my fingers around the fabric of the curtain.
Until the curtain tugged itself in my hands.
My eyes darted towards my fingers, my fingers that were wrapped tightly around a blue damask pattern.
I took a sharp breath and closed my eyes.
I tilted my head upwards.
“Find you!”