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 gro