It’s a Sunday morning, and I’m driving home from brunch. I get stuck behind one of those big, obnoxious trucks with a “wide load” sign on it. The thing about Knoxville is that you have to share the interstate with all kinds of trucks, and as you incline they have trouble shifting gears. The left lane clogs up with cars, so I follow the monstrous truck at a safe distance. It’s hauling one half of a double-wide trailer. One of the trailer’s windows is positioned in my line of sight, and I can see straight through the house. There’s counter space on one side, and on the wall facing me there’re holes for a washer and dryer. Trailer designs have come a long way since I was a girl. I grew up in a double-wide with a tin roof, green carpet, and walls paneled in dark, knotty wood.
I grow impatient with the slow crawl along the interstate, so I get off at the next highway to take the back roads home. October is the only right answer when asked which month is best. It’s warm enough, and afternoons like this one are breezy and bright. The leaves have turned yellow and red and orange. A row of ducks moves slowly over the water as I cross the bridge leading into my subdivision. Today the water is a swampy brown color, and it has little ripples in it.
I don’t see the boy until I come too fast around a curve and nearly sideswipe him. He scurries into a ditch by the side of the road. He’s about twelve years old and Black, maybe mixed-race. As I drive by him, I see the scared look on his face. His eyes are widened, and his shoulders are drawn up to his ears. Slowing down to a crawl, I realize that nearly being taken out by my car is not what has him so scared. He’s looking up the hill to where an older Black boy in a black hoodie is standing. The boy in the hoodie yells something to the scared boy, though I can’t make out the words. I go down a few yards and pull into my driveway. I hop out of the car and call out to the boy, “Hey! You okay?”
He pants, as if he’s just been running. Without a word, he nods.
I approach the scared boy. “You sure?” I ask, following his line of sight to the older kid on the hilltop. The older one looks like he’s maybe late teens or early twenties.
“I’m fine,” the boy says. He’s shaking, and the palm of his hand is up against the side of his face. When he moves his hand away, I see the swelling beneath one of his eyes. His face is streaked with tears. The boy has light brown skin and a long face with heavy eyebrows. As I move to put a hand on his shoulder, he tears his eyes away from the boy on the hill and starts moving away from me.
“Slow down,” I say, my voice sharp, the way I speak when I’m daring one of my own children to test my patience. My kids have grown up and moved away, but that doesn’t mean I can’t command a child to do my bidding.
He comes to a complete stop and turns toward me, waiting for me to catch up.
“Is that your brother?” I ask.
“Who?” he asks.
I turn to point behind me to the boy on the hill, but the older boy has suddenly disappeared. There are trees up on the ridge, and houses beyond that.
I turn back to the boy in front of me.
“Do you know that kid on the hill?”
He stares at me a long while, and for a moment I worry that he’s slow or has trouble understanding me. He shakes his head. “No, ma’am,” he says.
It’s been a long while since I’ve been called ma’am by a child. I’ve got three grandbabies and their parents don’t press those little niceties.
“You look familiar to me,” I tell him. He looks a lot like my grandson Bobby—the same big brown eyes, the same way of ducking their heads down when they think they’re in trouble.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“They call me ‘Son,’ but I’m Michael, or Little Michael.”
“Which do you prefer?”
His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, as if no one has ever asked him such a thing before. “Son, I guess,” he says.
He starts to walk away, and even though I’ve lived in this neighborhood thirty years and never had any problems, I’m worried about a child wondering around alone, especially one who has just been jumped on.
“Where do you live?” I ask.
He turns to look at me again, and I wonder if he thinks I’m trying to give him a hard time or being too nosy.
“Up at Rosewood,” Son says, pointing up the hill near the direction his attacker walked.
Rosewood is a pay-by-the-week motel in a dingy stucco building with a parking lot that needs re-cementing. If Son goes home, he could be beaten again, which is probably why he’s walking toward the church instead of up the hill. My heart speeds up a little.
“If you’ll trust me, I’ll take you back to my house and get an ice pack for that eye.”
He looks me up and down. If I were him, I’m not sure I’d go into a stranger’s house.
“I’ve got lunch meat. I could make you a sandwich and give you some cookies.”
God, I sound like a pedophile luring a child into a van with a fistful of candy.
But Son nods and steps toward me.
As we walk to my house, Son keeps looking up the hill toward Rosewood. The look of timidity in his eyes breaks my heart.
The homes in this neighborhood are all two and three stories tall and made of partial brick. We enter my house and I lead him back to the kitchen.
“I have turkey and ham,” I say. “Which do you like? Or, I could do tuna salad.”
I’m not sure if Son heard me. Rather than answer, he looks around at the granite countertops and shaker cabinets. He runs his hand slowly over the smooth surface of the kitchen table. He makes his way to the dollhouse on the countertop above the dishwasher.
I collect dollhouses. I have a spare bedroom full of them and not much room for this new one that sits here in the kitchen. This dollhouse is painted white. What I love most about it are the pale blue window shutters and the furniture. A blue settee and a baby blue carpet take up a sizable part of the living room space. The kitchen has a chandelier made of shiny plastic adorned with tiny yellow and white rhinestones.
“Where did you get this?” Son asks, his eyes wide. He looks up at me as if to ask permission before lightly placing a finger on the little chandelier. The chandelier swings back and forth, spilling light on the ceiling and sending shadows down the walls.
“I got it online, but I used to order the wood and build them with my kids when they were little,” I tell him. “It’s not difficult. You just have to measure the dimensions and sand things down.”
I pick up the dollhouse and take it over to the kitchen table so that Son can sit and play with it. He starts moving the furniture around the dollhouse. My grandson won’t play with dollhouses or dolls. He calls them “girl toys.” But Son is different. He leans forward and touches everything so delicately.
I pull open the freezer and grab an ice pack. I wrap the cold plastic pack in a warm dish towel and hand it to Son. He holds the pack to his eye with one hand and plays with the dollhouse furniture with his other hand.
My dog Buster leaps up the patio steps and comes to the sliding glass door of the kitchen. He puts a paw on the glass and scratches.
Now I remember where I’ve seen Son before. Months ago, Buster and I were sitting on the patio in the backyard. I have several apple trees back there, and one day two kids jumped the back fence. One was this boy, Son, and the other was a young girl who looked similar to him—the same light brown skin and long face. They must be brother and sister. The girl held out the front of her dress and dropped several apples into it, a smart way to carry them. Buster, who lay at my feet on the patio, sat up from his nap and started barking at the kids. They looked up and saw us and took off running toward the fence. Buster started to run after them, but I called him back. He continued to yelp. The girl fell, and then Son, stealing a glance over his shoulder at Buster and me, helped her to her feet. They ran off with the apples.
Now Son stares at the dollhouse chandelier, his eyes gleaming. He puts his finger on the chandelier again and makes it teeter back and forth. He adjusts one of the chairs in an upstairs room and then slides it over in front of the window seat.
“Are you hungry?” I ask him.
He looks up at me and nods. “I didn’t have any lunch.”
Did he not have any lunch because he hasn’t gotten around to it yet, or did he not have lunch because there is no food at his place? I think of the apples he once stole from my yard, and I wonder if he was hungry that day, too. The apples back there never amount to much good. They’re usually wormy and they taste nothing like a good Red Delicious apple from the market. Still, I suppose if you pick the right ones they will sustain a hungry child for a little while.
“Am I in some trouble or something?” he asks. He looks back and forth between me and the dollhouse.
“No,” I say, my voice cracking with emotion. “Would you like a sandwich or would you like something else?”
He stands up and goes to the fridge where he puts his hand on the door handle and looks at me. I nod my consent, and he pulls open the door and starts to go through the fridge. He pulls out sandwich meat, cheese, pickles, mustard, a pack of Oreos, a bottle of Coke, and a flat of strawberries, and lines it all up on the counter. “Can I fix it myself?”
“Of course,” I say. “Wash your hands first.”
I point toward the bathroom out in the hallway, but he grabs the dish soap on the lip of the sink, squirts it into his palm and washes his hands there at the sink. I pull a dish towel from a kitchen drawer and offer it to him, but he’s already drying his hands on the front of his cargo shorts. I stuff the towel back into the drawer and take a seat at the table to watch him build his lunch. Son takes a plate from the drying rack by the sink. “Got some bread?” he asks, and I point to the bread box by the stove. His hands move quickly. “Knife?” he says, pantomiming the motion he will make to smear the mustard over the bread. I point to the drawer by the dishwasher.
When he’s done making his lunch, Son doesn’t stop to put the food back in the fridge. Instead, he brings his plate over to the table. It’s piled up with two sandwiches, a handful of strawberries, and two stacks of Oreos on the very edge of the plate.
I get up to put the leftover food away. At some point I glance over at him. He’s eating with full attention, stuffing one bite into his mouth and hardly chewing before taking another bite. Watching Son eat is reminiscent of watching my brother Alton back when we were kids. Our family would have food at the start of each week, but by the time Wednesday or Thursday rolled around food was scarce. We’d yearn for Friday when Mama and Daddy would get paid again. My brother Alton was a fat kid, not because we were always well-fed, but because he gorged himself on the days when we had plenty of food. Watching Son eat, I see that he probably has some type of food insecurity. He’s tall for his age but looks a little thin. Maybe he doesn’t get good meals often.
He pauses and holds his hand to his stomach, and I can tell he’s trying not to belch loudly. Still, a soft burp escapes from his lips.
“Do you wanna take the rest of that home with you?”
He nods enthusiastically. I give him a paper plate and some plastic wrap and he dumps the second sandwich and some cookies onto the plate.
“You know what?” I say. “Why don’t you take that flat of strawberries and those other Oreos with you?” I step over to the fridge and pull the food out. I pile it into a plastic bag and hand it to him.
“Thanks,” he says, and then hurriedly he asks, “Do you want me to go home now, or can I play with your dollhouse some more?”
“You can stay,” I tell him. “But I also want you to tell me what happened to you.”
Son is looking down at the dollhouse. He keeps his head lowered but moves his eyes up to look at me.
“Are you afraid to go home?”
He shakes his head no, but I can see the truth in his sad eyes.
“If you’re scared, you can tell me. We can call someone to help you.”
He shakes his head. “They don’t help.”
I don’t ask who “they” are, but I can imagine who “they” are. Probably social services. Police.
“Look, if you ever need anything, come to this house.” My voice cracks on every other word.
Tears spill from Son’s eyes. He puts his head face down on the table, and I pat his back.
There’s a knock at the door.
I squeeze Son’s shoulder and head to the living room to answer the door.
I find Hank Baker on the front porch in his blue policeman’s uniform. Hank is the son of a man I went to school with years ago. The Bakers all go to my church.
“Hey, Miss Christine,” he says to me. “I got a call about two boys fighting in the road.” He gestures down the street toward the cul-de-sac. “I talked to one of your neighbors who said he saw a boy come home with you. Is he still here?”
My heart sinks a little. If Son were nervous to talk to me, I can only imagine how he’ll feel to speak to a cop. Besides, Hank would probably take him home, and I’m not sure if Son will even be safe there. “He’s here,” I whisper to Hank. “He was jumped on by an older boy, and he’s scared.”
I hear the sliding glass door open in the kitchen. “Hang on,” I tell Hank.
I rush through the living room and back to the kitchen. The sliding door stands wide open, and Son’s kitchen chair is empty.
“Miss Christine?” Hank calls out as he follows me to the kitchen. I go over to the sliding door and watch Son disappear through the fence gate.
Hank is talking, but I can’t focus on his words. I close the sliding door and sit down in the seat vacated by Son. The dollhouse has been left in disarray with one chair overturned and the TV stand keeling over against the wall on two legs.
Nothing bad ever happens in a dollhouse. The toy people sit in front of TVs and recline on beds. They are, of course, modeled after us humans. Yet there are so many of us who wish we could step into those houses where everything is picturesque, safe.
Contributor’s Notes
Born and raised in Georgia, Monic Ductan now lives in Tennessee and teaches at Tennessee Tech University. Monic’s book, a loosely linked collection of stories called Daughters of Muscadine, focuses on working-class Black women, estrangement, race, and family life in rural Georgia. Monic’s writing has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Shenandoah, Oxford American, Southeast Review, South Carolina Review, Appalachian Review, and storySouth. Her essay “Fantasy Worlds” was listed as notable in Best American Essays (2019). She is at work on her first novel, a book about a Gullah girl and her white boyfriend uncovering police corruption in a small, Southern town.
Photo credit: Kori Hobbs
