When they finally finished and let me back in the house I could smell them all over. Traces of cologne, sweat, squeaky rubber and chemicals. I was upset that they’d seen my precious things, like the picture of Mommy and Daddy. The photograph was fading even then, their features growing pale. They were leaving me, vanishing into white. Then there was the broken music box on the mantel—Mommy brought it from her faraway home. The music box didn’t play. I broke it the same day I smashed the Russian dolls, the day of the thing with the mouse. The little ballerina was snapped from her stem, felled and dead. Maybe I felt worst about her. (I call her Eloise. I don’t know why; she just looks like an Eloise.) I heard Mommy’s beautiful voice in my ear. You take everything from me, Theodore. Take, take, take.

Those people had looked at all my stuff with their eyes and thoughts and the house didn’t feel like mine anymore.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply to calm myself. When I opened them again the Russian doll smiled fatly back. Beside her sat the music box. Eloise the ballerina stood proud and upright, arms perfect and poised above her head. Mommy and Daddy smiled down from the photograph. My beautiful orange rug was like soft pills underfoot.

I felt better right away. Everything was OK. I was home.

Olivia’s head butted my palm. I laughed and picked her up. That made me feel even better. But overhead in the attic, the green boys stirred.

The next day I was in the newspaper. The headline was SUSPECT’S HOUSE SEARCHED. And there I was, standing in front of the house. They searched other houses but the article made it sound like it was just mine and I guess those people were smart enough to cover their faces. No picture, no story. They put my photograph right alongside the one of Little Girl With Popsicle, which was a story in itself.

The picture didn’t show the name of the street but people must have recognized it. Rocks and bricks came through the windows. So many. As soon as I replaced a pane another rock came through. I felt like I was going crazy. It happened so many times that I gave up and nailed plywood over the windows. It slowed them down. Not as much fun throwing rocks when there’s nothing to break. I stopped going out during the day. That was a bad time.

I put Little Girl With Popsicle—the newspaper with her picture in it, I mean—in the closet under the stairs. I bend down to put it at the bottom of the pile. It’s then that I see it on the shelf, half hidden behind the tower of newsprint—the tape recorder.