LITMIR.BIZ

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      Barry folds his slice down the middle and bites off half. He chews like the Brahman bull I once saw eating hay at the Bald Hill Fair. I pick up my slice and nibble on the tip. I have a knack for getting sauce on my shirts, and don’t want to look like a slob during our first gathering. Luckily, Barry starts talking to me, which takes away the pressure from having to eat. “The nun mentioned you two are baseball fans,” he says.

      “We sure are,” I reply.

      “If you play your cards right, I’ll let you watch the game with me after dinner.”

      “That sounds great. They’re playing the Marlins and their ace is starting.”

      Barry laughs so hard he has to spit out a soggy wad of dough to catch his breath. Lori looks away in disgust. “Why in the world would I want to watch those losers? Around here, young lady, we follow the Yankees.”

      I swallow hard to keep the pizza bite from running back up my throat. Sister Alice and I have spent the bulk of the past three summers watching baseball, but our favorite team is the Mets. She made it perfectly clear that the Yankees organization is in league with Lucifer to have been permitted so much steroid and salary abuse throughout the past few decades. “Actually, I’m feeling a bit run down. I’d like to call Sister Alice, and then see about going to bed.”

      Lori snickers. Barry turns red while his head descends into his chins. I’ve obviously hurt his feelings for refusing his invitation in front of others, but I feel worse realizing the Mets pregame show is about to begin. Sister Alice and I would be putting the kids in their pajamas and reading them their bedtime stories. Afterward, we’d make popcorn and chocolate milk and settle in just in time for the first pitch.

      When dinner comes to a close, I excuse myself into the kitchen and call the group home from a wall phone near the fridge. It’s been too long since I’ve heard Sister Alice’s voice, but I’ll have to wait longer as I’m met with our answering machine. I’d like to think she’s watching the Mets with the volume too high, but I’m afraid she’s sitting by herself after another joyless day, wondering what she did wrong, and how all this could have happened when her pieties should have kept the devil out of our sanctuary. To hopefully lessen her pains, I leave a quick message letting her know I’m doing okay and I’m thinking about her.

      I head downstairs with the intention of sleeping out the rest of the day, even though it’s barely nine o’clock, but I haven’t been alone in darkness since the children were taken. Sister Alice let us bunk in her room at night, and visiting patrons from our church community were always around during the day. With nobody here to distract me from the pain, I cry harder than I have since the first child was claimed. When a gentle knock sounds on my door, I wipe away tears and tell whomever it is to come in. The door opens a crack, letting in a beam of hallway light. “Were you sleeping?” Dennis asks.

      “Not even close,” I reply.

      “Do you like horror movies?”

      “Does Casper count?”

      “If you’re in Huggies. I’m putting one on for you if you’re up for it.” In need of a diversion, and eager to make friends of strangers, I swing my feet off the bed, hop up, and follow Dennis to his room. I abruptly stop in his doorway when noticing his decorations with quiet repulsion. The walls are cloaked with posters and magazine pages of horror movie villains and victims. Toys of madmen and monsters stand on anything with a flat surface. Five shelving units hold dozens of movies, all of which have titles that insinuate death and torment. Plus, there’s no place for me to sit. Jeremy has the bed, Dennis claims a soft computer chair, and the floor is covered with dirty clothes.

      Jeremy, outstretching his arms and legs to take up every inch of the mattress, says to me, “Take your holy ass to the carpet!” Dennis moves aside a pile of clothes with his foot, revealing a circular patch of carpeting.

      I sit on my knees and say, “What are we watching?”

      “Considering what you’ve been through,” Dennis replies, “I’ll start you off with something tame.” He hands me the DVD box for Child’s Play 2, where a living doll is holding a gigantic pair of scissors over the spring neck of a frightened jack-in-the-box. Though I’m in no mood to view anything immoral, I don’t want to turn him down and appear as though I don’t appreciate his offer, so I prepare myself for another new experience and sit Indian style against the foot of the bed.

      At the beginning of Child’s Play 2, a boy named Andy is taken in by a couple that cares for foster kids. Not long in, Chucky, a three-foot doll possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, hunts Andy down for whatever they squabbled over in the first film. Unfortunately, nobody believes that a doll could cause so many problems, so Andy is left to fend for himself. I feel relief that my first day in a new home is going better than Andy’s.

      Though I’m not accustomed to R-rated movies, Child’s Play 2 does offer warnings of violent mayhem, mainly through changes in music, which allow me to cover my eyes. Between the slits in my fingers I catch glimpses of an electrocution, a suffocation, and Chucky beating a school teacher to death with a yardstick. I make a sign of the cross after each murder, even though I can easily tell each death is staged. People don’t get blown through windows because of small doses of electricity, a doll could never muster enough strength to suffocate anyone with a plastic bag, and no yardstick I ever held could pulverize a human without breaking.

      Dennis and Jeremy don’t seem to care about the implausibilities. They laugh during the murders and find amusement in watching people die. Jeremy, taking disrespect of the victims further, taunts the characters in their agony. He even cries out in rage during the finale, when Andy gets the best of Chucky by blowing him up.

      When the film ends, I sit up on my knees, which brings relief to my stinging feet, and lean sideways against the bed. “That wasn’t exactly scary,” I say.

      “The first one was,” Dennis replies, “but there’s only so much tension you can wring out of plastic.”

      “Are there others? Seems a stretch to think Chucky could come back without a head.”

      “Only one way to find out. Are you up for Part Three?” Though watching humans die before their time doesn’t thrill me, I’d rather deal with a killer doll than the cold darkness of my unfamiliar room.

      When the boys call it a night, I have no choice but to go to bed and face my feelings alone. Whenever thoughts of death creep into my mind, I overshadow them with lighter memories of the deceased, such as the time Brian yelled at a chair because he dropped his toy when bumping into it; or the time Kim came home from preschool covered in paint because she preferred her shirt to canvas; or the time Chris insisted on dressing himself and came out of his room with his bumblebee underwear outside his pants. I can’t say these thoughts make me happy, but they somehow lessen the horror of their deaths and allow exhaustion to catch up to me.

      CHAPTER III

      I awaken in the morning to pulsating heat against my back. I half-expect to find my roommate, Amanda, sleeping beside me, but the snoring sounds are too deep for a three-year-old. I look over my shoulder and find a bald, blemished scalp. I slither onto the floor, land hard on my right hip, and stare at Nathan with wide eyes. Still sound asleep, he rolls over facing me. His lips are stuck to his dry teeth, which makes him look like a skeleton veiled in tight skin.

      A frantic voice sounds upstairs. I crawl to the hallway for a listen and hear Lori say, “Dad! Enough of this shit! Where are you?” I hurry up to the dining room, where Lori stops short and looks me over as though I’m interrupting her for no good reason. “Can I help you with something?”

      “He’s in my room,” I reply.

      “Isn’t that nice? We’ve been going crazy up here while you two are having a fucking tea party?”

      Before I can explain what’s actually happening, she brushes past me and heads to the basement. I follow her with the hope that finding Nathan asleep will lead to an apology

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