April Fool’s Closet

April’s colors are green and grey. It starts on April Fool’s Day. 

I was trying to make a thing. It needed a part that was a hinge but also a hook. One of my father’s tie racks might work.

My dad’s closet was in the room we were calling the family room then. My room was upstairs; I had a fort up on the closet shelf but it was starting to get kinda cramped and the light bulb burned a black spot on the wall when I was reading.

The family room had its own door out to the driveway; we didn’t use it much and none of us kids had a key.

But we watched tv, did ironing and played games in there, and that’s where dad’s closet was.

My kid sister still had to go to a sitter some days, because my big sister had important high school things to do and a longer walk. It was weird cuz she was only over on the next block but I wasn’t supposed to go over there and see her because then my mom would have to pay for both of us, and besides, the Kid would end up wanting to leave with me and I wasn’t allowed to babysit till I was 12.  

So I was alone, and that meant I could borrow the tie rack, see if it would work, and put it back before anyone else got home. It was a cool idea anyway; my dad would like it if it worked, even if he made me give it back. 

I was proud that I had thought to find a screwdriver and bring it with me. I wasn’t sure they were screwed up there, or that the Phillips was the right choice, but I hated finding out I needed a screwdriver and having to go get it. So many times you just don’t get back. I pulled open the door, hoping I could reach without getting a chair.

There was a rubber band on the floor.

That’s all. 

White everywhere, just walls. Not even dust on the floor, just that one green rubber band. No tie racks. No ties. No belts, suit jackets, shoes. 

I ran to the front closet. I had been wearing his navy blue windbreaker ever since the pocket tore and my mom wouldn’t let him wear it when they went out.

I had been wearing it the night I stepped on the frog, months ago now. I followed the stream in the street back up to the corner, where the storm sewer sat under the street lamp and usually got clogged with leaves. I knew as soon as my foot went down that it was not good. I had stepped on leaves and poop and rocks and even a nail once but this thing was not those. 

That was not the right shape for a frog. Stuff that seemed like it shouldn’t be out was. I poked at it a little to see if I could push it back in but it wasn’t straightforward and I didn’t want to hurt him any worse. My mom didn’t like animals, but my dad did, and he knew a lot about them. He could pick up any animal, even ones that bite like my gerbils, and he was never scared. I went and got him. He looked closely, then shook his head sadly and moved the frog gently off the street and under a little shrub.

The windbreaker was still there, in the family closet under the stairs. I put it on.

I went back to the family room and looked again. Still empty. I closed the door. I remembered what day it was and thought it seemed like a really bad April Fool. A lotta work and not very funny.

I checked all the closets in the house, in case we were all just changing rooms again. He’d gone on business trips before, but his closet stayed full of stuff.

Once in the summer before fifth grade, they’d had a big fight after we’d gone to bed. Only the little one slept through it. The big kids got up after he left and snuggled crying with mom for awhile. A ladybug visited us.

And then there was the family meeting where the Kid ended up hanging off his leg sobbing “No, Daddy, don’t go”, him choking back tears as I helped my mother pry her off.

I could see why they might not have wanted to go through that again. But maybe there was some other explanation.

My project forgotten, I took to my bike. 

The last time, he’d stayed with our friends at their farm, where the sulfur content in the water could gag you while you’re brushing your teeth. He painted a picture of their barn in the snow.

But it was April Fools. For the next hour, there was a sliver of a chance.

I rode in circles. I looked for the little frog carcass but it was long gone.