I Closed My Eyes Forever

When I was six, I was playing Red Light, Green Light with my brother, and I really did freeze. My mind stopped at six years old, and the shock of it broke something in Grandma too. My brother became a different person after that, keeping the two of us fed on scholarship money and whatever he could make collecting scrap. He used to be the proudest boy you ever saw. Kids at school called him a bum and he didn't even get angry. The only thing he couldn't let go was somebody passing us on the street and calling me a dummy — then he'd go after them like a madman to make them take it back. That night he held me and cried without making a sound. "Our Maisie isn't a dummy. Maisie just hasn't grown up yet. Promise me, okay? From now on, you don't go anywhere without your brother." I nodded like the fool I was, and I followed at his heels for three straight years. Until Molly came along. All I did was play in the mud and forget to wash my hands, and I got her clean white hem dirty. My brother broke, just like that, and put me out of the house. "Maisie Callahan, you've already cost me my whole life. Does Molly have to pay too? "Can't you learn to behave? Can't you stop making trouble for me?" For one second in my life, my head cleared. So that was it. Me being here was the worst thing that had ever happened to my brother. I hid in the casket Grandma had bought for herself, closed my eyes, and started counting. The game had begun.