Origins of Fear: She’s on the First Step

Where does terror reside in your body?

We all have core memories that shape our fears. They settle between our sinews, uninvited, without us knowing how they got there. They guide future behavior.

Fears and trauma are often our earliest memories, like this day with my mom and grandmother when I was a toddler.

***

“You look like that little girl from Firestarter. Drew Barrymore,” Mom says. “She had pyrokinesis. Could start fires just by thinking about it.”

She must be famous. Powerful.

The pin bristles of the brush dig into my scalp. A hundred angry jabs. “Your hair is like dandelion fluff. Impossible to tame.” My head jerks at unnatural angles like a marionette with a Tourette’s twitch with each sweep of the brush

We stand looking in the bathroom mirror, me on a step stool, my mom behind me diligently working through the tangled flaxen rat’s nest like we do every day.

Sweat blooms at the back of my chubby knees. The sun bakes this side of the house in the mornings, and the oscillating fan feels like hot breath.

“If we can just get these tangles out, maybe we can go to Kmart and get a sprinkler to attach to the hose. Then we can play in the grass. See if any of the cousins wants to come over?”

The screen door slams downstairs.

Followed by…silence.

“Hello? Who’s there?” Mom calls.

Ours is the type of town and the type of family that leaves the doors unlocked in the day with a steady stream of visitors. Cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors. People come right in, but they also announce themselves.

There is no response. 

“Hello? We’re upstairs. Be down in a minute.” My mother’s brow wrinkles. Only the slightest unease. “Katie, we’ll finish the other side of your hair after I go see who’s here.

Creeaakkkk.

The first wooden step aches with someone’s weight.

“Who’s there?!” my mom calls, sharper this time. Stopping by unannounced is fine. Sneaking around is not.

Another creak. Another step closer.

“This isn’t funny.” Her eyes meet mine in the mirror, her back wooden. She glances around the room for a way out. There is only one set of stairs. One way up. One way down. Whoever is creeping up the stairs has us cornered.

Creeeaaakkkk. Another step.

Mom pivots to the tiny bathroom window beside the sink and silently lifts the screen.

“Listen to me, Katie. I’m going to put you through the window onto the roof. It’s steep, so be very careful and stay next to the wall. Can you do that for me?”

I nod, sternly.  

Creak. Another step.

“You better identify yourself or leave! I’ve got a weapon, and I will use it.” The only weapon we had was a hairdryer that sometimes delivered an electric shock.

Creak. Another step. They are nearly to the top of the stairs. Just a few steps down the hallway, and we will be face-to-face with the intruder.

She hoists me up and rests my diapered bottom on the windowsill. I flip around onto my tummy and slowly lower myself. The red metal roof burns my bare feet, and the bricks are rough against my thighs.

“I’m coming out right after you, sweetie. Everything is going to be okay. Just stay right there. Don’t move.” Her eyes plead with me to believe her.

I stand with my back to the wall, just as she said. I don’t move. I am not normally allowed on the roof.

Across the rows of cyclone-fenced yard, neighbors cut grass and kneel in flower beds. Mrs. Avery is smoking a cigarette and flipping through a Woman’s Day with Princess Di on the cover. In our own yard, a robin visits the castle-shaped birdhouse in the dogwood tree, fetching tiny twigs for a nest. It is odd that Mom is so scared when everything looks so normal. The same as any other day.

Mom spills headfirst out the window, scraping her stomach on the metal window jam and skinning both knees on the bricks. Her eyes are wild, but she hurtles to her feet with an animal ease and scoops me into her arms.

“We have to be very quiet.” She enfolds me with such force it’s hard to inhale. She presses her lips to the top of my head, and we slip to the furthest spot from the window we can reach without pitching off the edge.

Two backyards over, the twins are playing with matchbox cars and chalk on the brick patio. Mrs. Lanigan hangs her ratty dish towels on the line with pink plastic clothespins. Why don’t we just call to her for help? She could bring a ladder.  

A quarter of an hour ticks by. And then another. No one ever peers out the window brandishing a knife.

“Let’s go back inside.” Mom says. “They must be gone by now.”

She lifts me gingerly back inside the window, my feet feeling relief at the textured green linoleum. The bathroom is the same as we left it. Vanity bulbs blazing and the Avon brush full of my pearly hair.

Mom winces climbing back through, dried blood congealed on both knees and a scrape up her arm.

“Wait here, sweetheart. I’m going to check the house.”

In the mirror, our reflections look shell-shocked. I sit on the floor and pull out a bin of neon-colored scrunchies, feeding them onto my wrist like bangles.  

She doesn’t call out this time. She creaks through the upstairs bedrooms. It’s impossible to be discreet in an old house. Every floorboard laments.  

She descends the stairs, each one announcing her approach.

She clears the kitchen and living rooms like a trained member of a SWAT team.

The screen door creaks open. She’s on the front porch.

“Mom! Don’t you ever do that to us again.” Her voice is raised. Mom never yells. She’s soft-spoken and sweet. “I had Katie out on the roof! A toddler! She could have fallen.”

Granny slowly tilts to-and-fro in the wicker rocker. Her curly gray hair is cropped shorter than usual and her eyes cast out on the neighborhood, a mean squint. She slides a finger along her pearls and pinches one. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Cathy. This is no way to speak to your mother.”

“You scared us on purpose!” She did.

Gran hoists herself out of the rocking chair. “I did no such thing. I just came for a visit with my lovely daughter, but you clearly don’t want to see me.” She storms off the front porch, purse thumping madly against her rear end as she power-walks to her gold Cadillac.

***     

This average day in my childhood is one of my first memories, and while I have many fond and funny stories about my grandmother, the day she scared my mom and me on purpose is rooted deep in my psyche. While we weren’t in any serious danger, I can remember the raw fear that invaded a normal summer day, unbidden. We never quite know what each hour might bring. Or whose face might appear sneaking up the stairs.