The Disappearances

22

We, well most of us, as children get things as gifts, typically twice a year at birthdays and Christmas. As the years pass, these things accumulate in our rooms until they are bursting by the time we graduate High School. Or do they? For some, I'm sure the answer is yes, but for many others the answer is no.

One family faced the horror first hand with an annual purge dictated by their mother. When that day of the year came, the children had to run and grab everything they could, for that which they couldn't hold onto ended up in the yard sale, no matter how loud the protests or how genuine the crying. Some might at first pile all their toys and dolls into a corner of the room and sit on them to keep them safe, but it was to no avail as they were easily pulled from the pile and then those kids were literally left empty handed.

For my family, things just disappeared.

Uncle Ronny gave me a leather billfold that he'd gotten during one of his transatlantic trips. I was thrilled and quickly put all the money I had into it. After he and Aunt Harriet left, I went up to my room and played for a bit then left the billfold behind on the bedside table. I went for a long winding walk in the woods and got home with eager anticipation to look over and hold the billfold again. It wasn't there. While the loss of thirty-four cents wasn't heart breaking, the loss of the billfold was. What had happened to it? Had I actually had it in my pocket when I went for my walk? I quickly checked my pocket, then the other ones just to make sure. Nope, it wasn't there. Had it fallen out as I had walked?

I then redid my long winding walk, carefully watching the ground and checking behind trees. Nothing. I returned home and told my mother of the lost billfold. ''Where did you put it, last?'' she'd ask while not looking up from whatever it was she was doing. I'd tell her and she'd tell me to go check there. When I'd tell her I did and it wasn't there, she'd say, ''Then it must be somewhere else.''

When things disappear as a child, you can take it for granted, believe someone stole it or, as you get older, assume you're going crazy. When a broken toy disappears, you take it for granted as, let's face it, it was broken.

In fourth grade there was this girl whose desk was moved next to mine when the classroom got rearranged. She befriended me and as Christmas time approached I got a small toy of a plastic Santa face that, when you pulled the tassel of his hat, his red nose lit up. I took it to school and showed it to her, she thought it was fun. Later, when we went out to recess, I put it in my desk for safekeeping. When I returned it was gone. I told the teacher about it, this lead to a quick round of asking other students if they'd seen it. Nope, it was gone. At the end of the school day, when class was dismissed, we gathered our things to go home and I saw the girl take the Santa head out of her desk and begin to slip it into her bag. I grabbed her arm and called the teacher. Under the teacher's questioning, she admitted she took it from my desk while the rest of the class was at recess as she assumed I hadn't wanted it any more... Say what? This sort of thing happened again with her and I had to make sure not to bring any more personal items to school and leave them in my desk.

But when things disappeared from my bedroom at home, it was clear I must be going crazy. After all, my siblings were much older than me so why would they want a toy for a young kid? My parents were above reproach, again why would they steal from their own kid? They're parents after all. And as my childhood progressed, I began to take it for granted that things at home would just disappear.

As I got older, I noticed a pattern of those things that disappeared. Any gift from Uncle Ronny or Aunt Harriet disappeared within a few days. Smaller items were more likely to vanish than larger items. The rare gift from my father, which Mom hadn't gotten and put Dad's name on, disappeared within a month or two. Gifts from my siblings typically stayed around for a year, and gifts from my mother never disappeared.

Then one day I caught her red handed leaving my room with a handful of small things. When I startled her and asked what she was doing, she said she assumed I hadn't wanted these any more, even though some of them had been in my keepsake drawer. When I told her I did, she explained that she hadn't known that and handed them to me, telling me I should let her know these things.

This was when I realized I had to keep things safe from my mother. But how? It now made sense why the big things were rarest to go, as it would be obvious to the other family members if she took them and walked through the house holding them. So it became a question of where to keep those small things I most valued. The first solution was to not keep things in my keepsake drawer, but then that practice would be too obvious with it empty, so I pondered what small things I wouldn't mind losing and kept them there along with a couple of coins. Then I tried to squirrel away things at the back of my clothes drawers, but this only worked for a few weeks before they had apparently been found. Then I tried the simplest method of just spending more time in my room, thus giving my mother less opportunity to rifle through it. But ultimately that was futile as it would mean turning down all future play dates and never taking a shower or bath again.

Finally, it occurred to me to use the hidden spaces in the closets. The roof of my house had three foot wide strips that tapered down more quickly at the edges than did the rest of the roof over the bedrooms. The closets were in the first part of these tapers and started out with a flat ceiling square that then turned into an angled surface coming down. Once it reached halfway to the floor, there was a wall with a cabinet-like door which hid the interior tail-end of the taper. The little door was there for additional storage and to allow pipe and wiring access. Those spots were most often used for storing empty luggage or discarded shoes that had been outgrown. Here was a place to hide my most prized keepsakes and toys, and to be extra safe, I used the closet of my old childhood bedroom which was once again empty after my eldest brother left.

And it worked... for a few years.

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