I don't know what he looks like, the "Man." Is he a tall and bulky stocking-faced shadow like the cartoon villains? Does he have a face and a name and a family?

I wonder what my grandmother saw when she closed her eyes and heard the sound that would tip her off that “the man” was breaking in. I wonder what that lightning bolt urge to protect her nine babies felt like. That spark of mental connection and instinct that shot her out from under a crocheted comforter and into the dark hallway where she would summon her brood to her bedroom, the boys armed with baseball bats, the girls armed with hairspray and the babies in arm, and all of them moving what furniture they could against the door.

In the absence of one man, my grandmother feared another. Her husband, my Papa, my mother’s dad, worked overnight — first as a driver for Budweiser, delivering yeast to bakeries, then as a baker for one of the doughnut shops he delivered to, then as the manager of that doughnut shop. By the time he owned the place, her kids were the men coming into the house late at night.

Now grown up, those kids tell us kids their stories from childhood, recalling with laughter the nights they’d be awoken by a mother frantic with fear, scrambling to hide them for their lives. I’ve heard the tales for as long as I can remember, usually after a holiday meal around a dining table the length of the room. I don’t know how often this routine occurred — that’s one detail that seems to have escaped the time capsule trauma sealed in their psyches — but it was enough to make an impression on them, and on us.

I wasn’t there, but the egg that would become me was locked inside my mother for safe keeping. And it’s unclear to me whether I startle easily just like my mom and am prone to bouts of insomnia like most of her siblings is more a matter of nature or nurture.

I wasn’t there, but one of my favorite summertime games to play with the neighbor kids simulated a break-in. Someone would count down from 60 and then attempt to enter the home while the rest of us raced up and down cellar stairs, excitedly latching and dead-bolting windows and doors to prevent the “invasion.”

I wasn’t there, but one stormy night on vacation, I made my cousin sleep with me on the floor of the bathroom connected to the bedroom we shared because I was convinced I heard a burglar stealing plates and silverware upstairs. In the morning, after shivering all night on cold tile with a hand towel for a blanket, we emerged to hear the adults talking about the remnants of last night’s storm: a broken windchime and blown-over deck furniture.

I wasn’t there, but I felt the same terror my mother and my grandmother felt when Kev went away on a camping trip last year and I was home alone for three nights. That deep-seated irrational fear cropped up inside me and I just knew: “the man” lurked outside, hidden in the three acres of jungle surrounding my house, his peering eyes watching, just waiting for the opportunity to break in.

Every night as the sun set, the fear set in and I found myself crouching beneath windows to move from one room to the next. Wide awake in the middle of the night, imagining my exit strategy for each angle he could approach from. And with the crack of first light, I found myself relieved and full of gratitude to be spared another night.

Last night, I dreamt I was looking out the attic window of a house when a car I didn’t recognize pulled up. At first, I thought it strange — I don’t remember expecting anyone, and I could swear I closed the front gate… Then it hit me: the man had finally done what three generations feared he’d do.

I began to panic and my first instinct was to run away, to try and find an escape or hiding spot. But then an awareness suddenly fell over me like a soft rain: this isn’t real. And I stopped and turned around to face the man, to talk to him and try to understand what he wanted, why he was here.

We stood face to face looking into each other’s eyes. I can’t remember what he said, if anything, but I remember feeling that I was no longer scared.

I wish I could go back in time to my overwhelmed grandmother in her 1950s nightgown and gently take her by the not-yet liver-spotted hand. I’d lead her into the bathroom, away from the sleeping children’s rooms, away from the chaos on the brink of ensuing. I’d turn on the light, brush the soft curls away from her not-yet-smile-lined eyes, and slowly turn her around toward the mirror.

“It’s simple, Nana,” I’d whisper, placing my hands firmly on her trembling shoulders. “When we face ourselves, we heal ourselves and we heal forward and backward too.”

Credits

Chilly by Jeremiah Fraites

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