"The Fifth House", a 'Sleepwalking' short story by Graham Smith
I held Sister Gwen’s hand as she led me through the orphanage. Even at ten years old I was almost as tall as the old woman, but just because I had the height of an adult didn’t mean I felt like one. “Sister Gwen,” I whispered, my voice a tiny squeak. “I’m scared.”
“I know you are, Ronnie,” she said, and her voice had a husky edge to it. I could tell that, like me, she was fighting off tears. “But I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.”
“Even if I don’t live here anymore?” I asked.
She was silent for a moment. Then Sister Gwen replied, “Yes. Even then. Especially, then.”
My backpack felt like it weighed a ton, even though it was filled with only a few meager belongings. Most of ‘my’ things I had left in my room, on the fifth floor; they belonged to the orphanage, not me. And I’d left a lot of things with my eight-year-old roommate, Deirdre.
I wasn’t sure if she understood when I left the room that morning that I’d never be coming back. I had been trying to hide my tears from her all week, since Sister Gwen had told me that Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan had filed all the papers and were ready to adopt me. A few times Deirdre had walked in on me wiping my nose (I’m a really messy crier), and each time I had put on a happy face and pretended like nothing was wrong.
But when I left our room this morning and gave her some of my favorite books, things I never would have parted with if we were still going to be roommates, the look on her face told me that she knew.
My knees shook as Sister Gwen took me into the chapel, the largest room in the orphanage. There were several other nuns waiting with Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan, and they all turned to me as I was pulled into the room.
“Hello, Ronnie,” Mr. Macmillan said as I approached the couple. I kept my eyes lowered to the carpet and held tighter to Sister Gwen’s hand.
“Hi,” I peeped, and my chest shuddered from a sob that I held inside.
“Are you ready to go, honey?” Mrs. Macmillan asked, kneeling so we were face-to-face.
I still didn’t raise my eyes from the floor. “Yes,” I lied.
Two fingers were placed beneath my chin, and Sister Gwen raised my face to hers. “Don’t be scared, Ronnie,” she said. Her deep, brown eyes were glassy. “You have to be brave. Remember that I am always praying for you, every second of every day.”
Prayer. What good had prayer done me? I had prayed that my real mom would someday come back for me, but no one had even laid eyes on her in ten years, since the day she left me on the doorstep. I had prayed for a real home and a real family. And here I was, heading off to my fifth foster home in as many years. How would prayer make this one any different?
I didn’t think my own prayers would do any good. But, for some reason, when Sister Gwen told me she would be praying, it felt like it would help, like there was power in her words. I tossed my arms around her neck and let myself sob once into her shoulder before I composed myself and followed Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan through the chapel.
When the huge, wooden doors closed behind us, they sounded louder than they ever had. “Are you excited, Ronnie?” Mr. Macmillan asked me. He pressed a button on an electronic key ring, and a car in the parking lot beeped and its lights flashed.
“A little,” I whispered shyly. Then I remembered what Sister Gwen told me to say every time I left with a family, and it mechanically left my mouth before I could think about it. “Thank you for adopting me, Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan. I’m going to try my hardest to be the best daughter possible.”
“We’re lucky to have you, Ronnie,” Mrs. Macmillan replied. “But please, call us Louis and Janet. And maybe someday soon, after you’re comfortable with us … you can call us Dad and Mom.”
I doubted it. But I’d at least give them the benefit of the doubt. “Do I have to change my name to Ronnie Macmillan?” I asked.
“Only if you want to,” Mr. Macmillan said as he opened the front passenger seat for me. “And you don’t have to decide right now. You can change it whenever you like.”
I wasn’t sure I could. I was Veronica Dawson, and I didn’t think a house and two people I lived with could change that.
I thought that Mrs. Macmillan should ride in the front seat, but I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I cradled my backpack in my lap and rode in silence away from St. Ivo of Kermartin’s Home for Unwanted and Abandoned Children.
The Macmillan’s home was a few miles from the orphanage. It was a one-story, sprawling, ranch-style house with a big back yard. It looked like it would have been a great place for kids to play, if the Macmillans would have had some of their own. When Mr. Macmillan unlocked and opened the door, I was instantly greeted by small, squash-faced dog yipping at my ankles.
It was the first sign that I really didn’t belong there.
“Munchie!” Mrs. Macmillan said, taking the dog in her arms. She held the dog out to me. “Munchie, this is Ronnie. Say hi to Ronnie!”
Munchie growled.
“It’s okay, Ronnie, you can pet him,” Mr. Macmillan assured me. “He won’t bite.”
I wanted nothing to do with the dog, but, once again, I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I tentatively stretched out my hand. When it was less than an inch from his nose, Munchie snapped for my fingers. I jerked them away before I lost any digits and the dog barked fiercely at me.
You may be thinking that a six-pound dog can’t bark fiercely. But I was a scared ten-year-old moving into a new home with a new family. It sounded fierce to me.
“That’s strange,” Mr. Macmillan said. “Munchie always likes new people. Oh, well … he probably just needs some time to get used to you.” He shook his head dismissively and stepped over the threshold. “Come on in, Ronnie. This is your home, now.”
My room was pink.
It was the room the Macmillans had created when they tried, years before, to have a daughter of their own. Thankfully all the baby furniture was gone, but they hadn’t bothered to paint over the bubblegum-pink paint that coated all four walls.
Like almost all girls, I used to like pink. Maybe they thought I still liked it, since the sweater I wore was covered in three shades of pink stripes. I didn’t tell them that I only wore the sweater because I didn’t have much selection when it came to cold-weather clothes. “It’s great,” I lied as I dropped my backpack on the pink beadspread. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
The room felt like a little pink prison. I stayed in there most of the day, simply because I didn’t know what I was and wasn’t allowed to do, and where I was and wasn’t allowed to go. I couldn’t ask; if I asked for the wrong thing I’d be so embarrassed, and I didn’t want them to be mad at me.
I was sad. I was scared. I was lonely. And the worst part was, as much as I missed Deirdre and Sister Gwen, I wanted so badly for this family to be my last. I wanted to belong. Just as I felt my chest shuddering my and lower lip trembling, I dropped to my knees at the foot of the bed and wrapped my hands together. I hoped I was doing it right; even though Sister Gwen had told me many times how to do it, I was ashamed that I had never really listened.
“Um….” I mumbled, and hot tears ran down my cheeks. “I … I don’t know if anyone is up there…” I began. “But, if there is … this is Ronnie. Ronnie Dawson. And I really, really want a family. So, if you can … please make this work. I just …” my voice cracked, and my face scrunched in anguish. “I just want to belong. More than anything. So, uh … amen. I guess.”
When I opened my eyes, I found that I had just been talking to four pink walls. Feeling like a complete idiot, I stood and tentatively left my bedroom. Maybe if I forced myself to call Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan Louis and Janet, I could eventually force myself to call them Dad and Mom. Maybe if I started now, it would eventually feel normal.
That night, Mrs. Macmillan fixed meatloaf for dinner. It wasn’t as good as Sister Gwen’s, but of course I would never have told her. Besides, it was still pretty good, and the green beans were good, too, even though they came from a can. But even though the food was good and my new foster parents had done their best to make their home as welcoming as possible (they even lit candles on the dinner table), I didn’t feel like eating much.
“I know that it feels strange now, Ronnie,” Mrs. Macmillan said after a few minutes of silence at the dinner table. “But I promise, after a few days, you’ll feel better. We’re here for you.”
I could appreciate that the Macmillans were trying. I really could. But the way Mrs. Macmillan said she’d be there for me wasn’t nearly as comforting as when Sister Gwen had said it, and even thinking about the little, old nun made me tear up again. I picked up my napkin and acted like I had to burp as another sob climbed its way up my chest.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry at the dinner table. Eat your food and act like you’re happy.
The more I tried to hold the feelings back, the harder they were to contain. I knew that Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan were looking at me, and they were probably worried about the basket case they had just let into their home. They probably wanted to say something to cheer me up, but they had no idea what I needed to hear. How could they? They had never had kids, and they had just met me.
I had never been so embarrassed and ashamed. I wish I was invisible, I thought. I wish I could hide. I wish they couldn’t see me. “I wish it was dark.”
I didn’t mean to say the last sentence aloud. I guess my mind was so full that it just slipped out, and with it came all the emotions behind it. Everything suddenly went black. I looked up from behind my napkin and found that all the candles in the room had blown out (I could still smell the wisps of smoke in the air) and every light bulb had died.
My mind raced as Mr. Macmillan excused himself from the dinner table and left the room. Oh, no, I thought. Not here. Not again. I can’t lose another family like this.
The previous five families that I had thought were going to be my last had all returned me to the orphanage for the same reason: after they had invited me into their homes, strange things started to happen. Lights flickered on and off. Windows shattered. Family pets started acting crazy. The weather went haywire, but only around the home where I was staying. And, with each family, the symptoms became worse and worse. After a week of it, each family had enough and took me back to St. Ivo’s, claiming that they ‘couldn’t provide for a girl with my sort of special needs’.
After four homes, I knew what that meant. I was cursed, and no family would ever want me.
In the dark I squeezed my eyes shut and clasped my hands together. Please, please, please make it stop! I prayed. I just want a home! I want to fit in! I want to be normal!
Another sob bubbled its ways into my chest, and as I hiccuped back tears the candles on the dinner table suddenly burned to life again. But they burned impossibly hot and bright, like four blow torches, and within seconds the candles were nothing more than puddles of wax on the tablecloth.
Mrs. Macmillan’s face was frozen in horror, and slowly her eyes drifted to me. I hid my face and cried harder.
She knew.
By now the temperature in the room had dropped at least twenty degrees, and I could hear frost creeping across the dining room’s long picture window. I tried to hold my breath to calm myself, because it seemed like the more I panicked the worse it became. But Mrs. Macmillan knew that there was something wrong with me, and soon Mr. Macmillan would know, and that would be the end of my fifth home.
I crossed my arms on the table and buried my face in them. “Why won’t it stop?” I cried into the tablecloth. “Why won’t it just stop?”
The Macmillans tried to offer an explanation as to why I couldn’t stay with them. There was something about a family obligation and, of course, them not being able to provide the kind of home that I needed and deserved. Nothing I hadn’t heard before, and nothing I wouldn’t hear again.
They at least offered to sit on the front porch with me while I waited for Sister Gwen to come and pick me up in the orphanage’s van. I told them that they didn’t have to, that I would be fine on the front porch by myself. They insisted, so I sat between them on the swing while we waited. Maybe sitting with me made them feel better about shipping me back to the orphanage the same day they picked me up.
Just like with the last four houses, I cried until I didn’t think I could cry anymore. By the time the bus arrived, an inch of snow had piled up on the Macmillan’s yard and driveway. It was the fourteenth of May.
With the bus idling in the driveway, Sister Gwen stepped onto the porch and collected me in her arms. I was still crying so I couldn’t hear exactly what she said, but I didn’t need to. I had heard it all before. She was thanking them for giving me a chance, something about them finding the right child and me finding the right home, and a bunch of other stuff that didn’t change how messed up things were.
Once again, I didn’t have a family. And, with the way things were going, I never would. I was Veronica Dawson, the lost cause. The cursed girl.
“I know you are, Ronnie,” she said, and her voice had a husky edge to it. I could tell that, like me, she was fighting off tears. “But I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.”
“Even if I don’t live here anymore?” I asked.
She was silent for a moment. Then Sister Gwen replied, “Yes. Even then. Especially, then.”
My backpack felt like it weighed a ton, even though it was filled with only a few meager belongings. Most of ‘my’ things I had left in my room, on the fifth floor; they belonged to the orphanage, not me. And I’d left a lot of things with my eight-year-old roommate, Deirdre.
I wasn’t sure if she understood when I left the room that morning that I’d never be coming back. I had been trying to hide my tears from her all week, since Sister Gwen had told me that Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan had filed all the papers and were ready to adopt me. A few times Deirdre had walked in on me wiping my nose (I’m a really messy crier), and each time I had put on a happy face and pretended like nothing was wrong.
But when I left our room this morning and gave her some of my favorite books, things I never would have parted with if we were still going to be roommates, the look on her face told me that she knew.
My knees shook as Sister Gwen took me into the chapel, the largest room in the orphanage. There were several other nuns waiting with Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan, and they all turned to me as I was pulled into the room.
“Hello, Ronnie,” Mr. Macmillan said as I approached the couple. I kept my eyes lowered to the carpet and held tighter to Sister Gwen’s hand.
“Hi,” I peeped, and my chest shuddered from a sob that I held inside.
“Are you ready to go, honey?” Mrs. Macmillan asked, kneeling so we were face-to-face.
I still didn’t raise my eyes from the floor. “Yes,” I lied.
Two fingers were placed beneath my chin, and Sister Gwen raised my face to hers. “Don’t be scared, Ronnie,” she said. Her deep, brown eyes were glassy. “You have to be brave. Remember that I am always praying for you, every second of every day.”
Prayer. What good had prayer done me? I had prayed that my real mom would someday come back for me, but no one had even laid eyes on her in ten years, since the day she left me on the doorstep. I had prayed for a real home and a real family. And here I was, heading off to my fifth foster home in as many years. How would prayer make this one any different?
I didn’t think my own prayers would do any good. But, for some reason, when Sister Gwen told me she would be praying, it felt like it would help, like there was power in her words. I tossed my arms around her neck and let myself sob once into her shoulder before I composed myself and followed Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan through the chapel.
When the huge, wooden doors closed behind us, they sounded louder than they ever had. “Are you excited, Ronnie?” Mr. Macmillan asked me. He pressed a button on an electronic key ring, and a car in the parking lot beeped and its lights flashed.
“A little,” I whispered shyly. Then I remembered what Sister Gwen told me to say every time I left with a family, and it mechanically left my mouth before I could think about it. “Thank you for adopting me, Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan. I’m going to try my hardest to be the best daughter possible.”
“We’re lucky to have you, Ronnie,” Mrs. Macmillan replied. “But please, call us Louis and Janet. And maybe someday soon, after you’re comfortable with us … you can call us Dad and Mom.”
I doubted it. But I’d at least give them the benefit of the doubt. “Do I have to change my name to Ronnie Macmillan?” I asked.
“Only if you want to,” Mr. Macmillan said as he opened the front passenger seat for me. “And you don’t have to decide right now. You can change it whenever you like.”
I wasn’t sure I could. I was Veronica Dawson, and I didn’t think a house and two people I lived with could change that.
I thought that Mrs. Macmillan should ride in the front seat, but I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I cradled my backpack in my lap and rode in silence away from St. Ivo of Kermartin’s Home for Unwanted and Abandoned Children.
The Macmillan’s home was a few miles from the orphanage. It was a one-story, sprawling, ranch-style house with a big back yard. It looked like it would have been a great place for kids to play, if the Macmillans would have had some of their own. When Mr. Macmillan unlocked and opened the door, I was instantly greeted by small, squash-faced dog yipping at my ankles.
It was the first sign that I really didn’t belong there.
“Munchie!” Mrs. Macmillan said, taking the dog in her arms. She held the dog out to me. “Munchie, this is Ronnie. Say hi to Ronnie!”
Munchie growled.
“It’s okay, Ronnie, you can pet him,” Mr. Macmillan assured me. “He won’t bite.”
I wanted nothing to do with the dog, but, once again, I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I tentatively stretched out my hand. When it was less than an inch from his nose, Munchie snapped for my fingers. I jerked them away before I lost any digits and the dog barked fiercely at me.
You may be thinking that a six-pound dog can’t bark fiercely. But I was a scared ten-year-old moving into a new home with a new family. It sounded fierce to me.
“That’s strange,” Mr. Macmillan said. “Munchie always likes new people. Oh, well … he probably just needs some time to get used to you.” He shook his head dismissively and stepped over the threshold. “Come on in, Ronnie. This is your home, now.”
My room was pink.
It was the room the Macmillans had created when they tried, years before, to have a daughter of their own. Thankfully all the baby furniture was gone, but they hadn’t bothered to paint over the bubblegum-pink paint that coated all four walls.
Like almost all girls, I used to like pink. Maybe they thought I still liked it, since the sweater I wore was covered in three shades of pink stripes. I didn’t tell them that I only wore the sweater because I didn’t have much selection when it came to cold-weather clothes. “It’s great,” I lied as I dropped my backpack on the pink beadspread. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
The room felt like a little pink prison. I stayed in there most of the day, simply because I didn’t know what I was and wasn’t allowed to do, and where I was and wasn’t allowed to go. I couldn’t ask; if I asked for the wrong thing I’d be so embarrassed, and I didn’t want them to be mad at me.
I was sad. I was scared. I was lonely. And the worst part was, as much as I missed Deirdre and Sister Gwen, I wanted so badly for this family to be my last. I wanted to belong. Just as I felt my chest shuddering my and lower lip trembling, I dropped to my knees at the foot of the bed and wrapped my hands together. I hoped I was doing it right; even though Sister Gwen had told me many times how to do it, I was ashamed that I had never really listened.
“Um….” I mumbled, and hot tears ran down my cheeks. “I … I don’t know if anyone is up there…” I began. “But, if there is … this is Ronnie. Ronnie Dawson. And I really, really want a family. So, if you can … please make this work. I just …” my voice cracked, and my face scrunched in anguish. “I just want to belong. More than anything. So, uh … amen. I guess.”
When I opened my eyes, I found that I had just been talking to four pink walls. Feeling like a complete idiot, I stood and tentatively left my bedroom. Maybe if I forced myself to call Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan Louis and Janet, I could eventually force myself to call them Dad and Mom. Maybe if I started now, it would eventually feel normal.
That night, Mrs. Macmillan fixed meatloaf for dinner. It wasn’t as good as Sister Gwen’s, but of course I would never have told her. Besides, it was still pretty good, and the green beans were good, too, even though they came from a can. But even though the food was good and my new foster parents had done their best to make their home as welcoming as possible (they even lit candles on the dinner table), I didn’t feel like eating much.
“I know that it feels strange now, Ronnie,” Mrs. Macmillan said after a few minutes of silence at the dinner table. “But I promise, after a few days, you’ll feel better. We’re here for you.”
I could appreciate that the Macmillans were trying. I really could. But the way Mrs. Macmillan said she’d be there for me wasn’t nearly as comforting as when Sister Gwen had said it, and even thinking about the little, old nun made me tear up again. I picked up my napkin and acted like I had to burp as another sob climbed its way up my chest.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry at the dinner table. Eat your food and act like you’re happy.
The more I tried to hold the feelings back, the harder they were to contain. I knew that Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan were looking at me, and they were probably worried about the basket case they had just let into their home. They probably wanted to say something to cheer me up, but they had no idea what I needed to hear. How could they? They had never had kids, and they had just met me.
I had never been so embarrassed and ashamed. I wish I was invisible, I thought. I wish I could hide. I wish they couldn’t see me. “I wish it was dark.”
I didn’t mean to say the last sentence aloud. I guess my mind was so full that it just slipped out, and with it came all the emotions behind it. Everything suddenly went black. I looked up from behind my napkin and found that all the candles in the room had blown out (I could still smell the wisps of smoke in the air) and every light bulb had died.
My mind raced as Mr. Macmillan excused himself from the dinner table and left the room. Oh, no, I thought. Not here. Not again. I can’t lose another family like this.
The previous five families that I had thought were going to be my last had all returned me to the orphanage for the same reason: after they had invited me into their homes, strange things started to happen. Lights flickered on and off. Windows shattered. Family pets started acting crazy. The weather went haywire, but only around the home where I was staying. And, with each family, the symptoms became worse and worse. After a week of it, each family had enough and took me back to St. Ivo’s, claiming that they ‘couldn’t provide for a girl with my sort of special needs’.
After four homes, I knew what that meant. I was cursed, and no family would ever want me.
In the dark I squeezed my eyes shut and clasped my hands together. Please, please, please make it stop! I prayed. I just want a home! I want to fit in! I want to be normal!
Another sob bubbled its ways into my chest, and as I hiccuped back tears the candles on the dinner table suddenly burned to life again. But they burned impossibly hot and bright, like four blow torches, and within seconds the candles were nothing more than puddles of wax on the tablecloth.
Mrs. Macmillan’s face was frozen in horror, and slowly her eyes drifted to me. I hid my face and cried harder.
She knew.
By now the temperature in the room had dropped at least twenty degrees, and I could hear frost creeping across the dining room’s long picture window. I tried to hold my breath to calm myself, because it seemed like the more I panicked the worse it became. But Mrs. Macmillan knew that there was something wrong with me, and soon Mr. Macmillan would know, and that would be the end of my fifth home.
I crossed my arms on the table and buried my face in them. “Why won’t it stop?” I cried into the tablecloth. “Why won’t it just stop?”
The Macmillans tried to offer an explanation as to why I couldn’t stay with them. There was something about a family obligation and, of course, them not being able to provide the kind of home that I needed and deserved. Nothing I hadn’t heard before, and nothing I wouldn’t hear again.
They at least offered to sit on the front porch with me while I waited for Sister Gwen to come and pick me up in the orphanage’s van. I told them that they didn’t have to, that I would be fine on the front porch by myself. They insisted, so I sat between them on the swing while we waited. Maybe sitting with me made them feel better about shipping me back to the orphanage the same day they picked me up.
Just like with the last four houses, I cried until I didn’t think I could cry anymore. By the time the bus arrived, an inch of snow had piled up on the Macmillan’s yard and driveway. It was the fourteenth of May.
With the bus idling in the driveway, Sister Gwen stepped onto the porch and collected me in her arms. I was still crying so I couldn’t hear exactly what she said, but I didn’t need to. I had heard it all before. She was thanking them for giving me a chance, something about them finding the right child and me finding the right home, and a bunch of other stuff that didn’t change how messed up things were.
Once again, I didn’t have a family. And, with the way things were going, I never would. I was Veronica Dawson, the lost cause. The cursed girl.