Tiffany, Amber and Brittany have come to live with us. We don’t know where they came from, but they’re here. That’s all we know. The only time they really talk to us is to ask if they can have a car wash to raise money for their team, or to encourage us to have more school spirit. They also spend a lot of time practicing their cheers. “We got a team, and we’re gonna shout it. We’re gonna win, there’s no doubt about it!” or, “Push em back, push em back, WAY back!” Stuff like that.
Otherwise, they text or talk on their cell phones and they spend a lot of time giggling in the bathroom. We say anything to them, ask them to pick up their clothes, come home on time or give them a bedtime and they start crying or throwing things at us, so we try to give them their space. They sit and watch television most nights, but they never stop texting or asking if we have any gluten free snacks. Nearly every night though, one ends up screaming, “Fuck! I got homework!”
We thought we had our hands full with the cheerleaders, but that was before the burglar broke in. We didn’t lose anything, and as burglaries go, it was a flop. We caught the guy red handed, rifling through my desk, my laptop under his arm, a ski mask over his head. He seemed pretty surprised that we were up so early, but who can sleep anymore? He was contrite though, even apologized. You can’t really trust burglars of course, so we remained skeptical.
We still have all our stuff, but the problem is that the burglar won’t leave, tells us tearfully that he’s an orphan, so what are we supposed to do? Since Tiffany, Amber and Brittany kind of got dibs on the second bedroom, the burglar is stuck sleeping in the third bedroom downstairs, the one I use for my office. It’s a little cramped with the roll-away bed in there now, and it’s taking some getting used to having him there looking at me when I’m on the phone, but we manage.
He’s okay as far as guests go, actually less work for us than the girls, especially Brittany who’s always singing despite having no talent for it whatsoever. And the burglar keeps to himself, mostly spends his time going in out of rooms, picking things up, examining them and rummaging through drawers. We’re used to that now, but the really unnerving thing is that he never takes his mask off, even at dinner.
The burglar doesn’t talk much about his feelings or, like the cheerleaders, say why he is here, but you kind of expect that from an orphan. He does seem comfortable with asking how much we paid for things though; asking how much this or that would be worth if we ever wanted to sell it. And he seems to be confident enough to dole out marital advice now and then, remarking once that our silence at the dinner table could indicate that our marriage is in some kind of trouble. “Communication is the key.” he said, holding his fork in the air with one hand, absentmindedly tugging at his mask with the other.
The cheerleaders never seem to hear a word he says. That’s probably for the best. They just come to dinner, take pictures of their food and keep quiet for a change.
Sometimes the burglar will make a wise crack and give them a hard time. One of them, usually Amber, (She’s got a real mouth on her) will say something like how how he must be “butt ugly” because he won’t take off his ski mask, or she’ll point out that he’s got food on it, which sets really sets him off. At this point, dinner is pretty much a free for all.
After a while we could only take so much, that’s understandable, so we decided to get some help. We brought in a therapist. The plan was for us to get together Thursday nights and talk about our feelings. Someone is supposed to say something and another person is supposed to ‘reflect’ it back. Something like “And how did that make you feel?”
We made a rule, no cell phones. The burglar was fine with it, but you try enforcing that with teenagers. They spend the entire 50 min staring at their phones, making swiping motions with their fingers across the screens, alternately smiling, then frowning.
That first session, we look to the the therapist for support, but she just tells us to let go, not to say anything to them. “They aren’t your children, you know. No one is.”
The burglar agrees and adds his two cents, mutters something about extended families, ‘it takes a village’, ‘for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction’, ‘you win some, you lose some’…just the kinds of things you would expect from a thief.
It doesn’t take too long to see that this isn’t really going anywhere. We look to the therapist for guidance again, but now she’s not there. We don’t see her, but we can hear her. We hear her measured footsteps, walking through the house, opening… reluctantly, hesitantly closing doors.
Steve Vermillion is a writer living in Northern California. His recent work appears in The NewerYork, The Morning News, Bicycle Review, Round Up Zine, Diverse Voices Quarterly and Black Heart Magazine.