“Why don’t you look through that stuff and make sure your birth certificate and Social Security card are there?” Abel asked him as he rose to his feet. Theo smiled up at him and scooted forward on the couch to reach for the box. He liked that Abel gave him important things to do, as if they were no big deal. As they went into the kitchen, Theo pulled out the manila folder tucked into the side of the box and opened it to find his birth certificate and social security card.

It had actually been a fairly easy, and probably not so essential, task since it was literally the reason they were here, and so, of course, his aunt included them, but double-checking was important. He set them aside on the couch cushion and picked up one of the photo albums. When he flipped to the first page, he realized it was more of a memory album. On the first page, in his mother’s angular sideways handwriting, was his birthdate, weight, and other details, along with a pocket, into which an ink impression of two tiny feet labeled with his name was tucked.

He slammed the book shut and hastily put it back in the box, heart hammering in his chest. Had he ever really been that small? He shoved the manila folder back in and then folded down the box flaps for good measure. Maybe he could face his aunt, but he certainly was not ready to face what was in that box. The life he threw away.

He shot to his feet and walked toward the door that Abel had disappeared through before remembering his aunt had taken him to a different room for some privacy, then froze with indecision. The ticking clock was louder here. Apparently, it was coming from in the kitchen, and just like he could hear it, he could hear their conversation.

“No, they didn’t have a will, which is why I’m so grateful that his family called me,” Aunt Dolores was saying. Then came the sound of a fridge door shutting. “It would have all gone to Theo, but nobody could find him. From what I understand, he was never legally a missing person. Bill’s brother, George, said they did file a missing person’s report on him a number of years back, but they found Theo alive and apparently wanting nothing to do with his parents, so…”

There was a beat of silence.

“Anyway, when they died, George tried to find the kid but couldn’t, so they just split everything up. Had an auction. Put the house on the market. George let me have the furniture for free, but I ended up having to pay market price for the little bungalow they owned down by the beach.”

“How come he was the one making the decisions?” Abel spoke up. “Aren’t you her sister, just like he’s his brother?”

“Yes, but I hadn’t spoken to her in years. And everything was in Bill’s name, so…” she trailed off again.

Theo pressed his shark into his chest and wondered why she had not wanted to have this conversation with him. She told him about the furniture but not the bungalow. He could remember going there as a kid. It was one of the reasons why he loved the beach so much.

“I didn’t want to overwhelm him,” she spoke again. “The police—when they called—said that he wasn’t…well adjusted. I’d like to be able to put the bungalow in his name. I hardly make it down to the beach, anyway. But I didn’t want to say anything until I knew what was going to happen to him.”

When Abel spoke again, his voice was low and serious. He did not sound angry. He never sounded angry and never really needed to because speaking in that intense tone made people stop and listen to him regardless. “He talks about the beach sometimes—says it’s like what he imagines heaven would be.” Then he sighed. “What’s going to happen is that he’s going to get his ID and then—I hope—stay with me. If you’re worried about him being institutionalized or going crazy and losing the property or something, that’s not going to happen. If you want to wait to make sure, that’s within your right, but just know that he’s cognizant, he remembers the beach, and just because his life had been on hold for years now doesn’t mean it can’t continue into the future.”

Theo dropped his chin to grin at his shark’s beady eyes. Abel always had a way of making him feel normal and making everyone else seem like they were the crazy ones for thinking he was nuts. It was nice. Theo knew he was nuts, but not always as much as people made him out to be. The bungalow seemed like such a huge thing. He couldn’t deal with it on his own, despite Abel’s confidence, so he hoped Abel would stick around and help him if his aunt decided to let him live there.

“Can you imagine?” Theo whispered to the shark as he wandered back over to the couch so he wouldn’t be caught eavesdropping. “We might be going back to the beach. Where you belong!”

About a minute later—he knew that because he counted the clock ticks coming from the kitchen while trying not to listen to the rest of their conversation on account of it being rude—they returned with more lemonade.

“Your aunt invited us to stay for dinner.” Abel sat beside him as she set the pitcher down. “Would you like to stay?”

Theo appreciated that Abel cared so much about his opinions, but now he felt like a bright, hot spotlight was on his face. He licked his lips and glanced at Aunt Dolores, who smiled kindly.

“I think,” he said slowly, “I’d rather not.”

Her face fell, so he tacked on, “I’m really happy to see you, but I’m tired from driving and just want to go to our hotel room and sleep before we have to drive back tomorrow.”

“That makes sense, honey,” she smiled again to show him that she was not upset. He looked at her understanding expression and felt something in his gut twist. That was not quite how he wanted to leave it. He did not want to sit through dinner, but he wanted to make a connection with her again.

“Oh!” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his new phone. It only had two contacts saved. If he wanted to add some stuffing to himself, he could do it by adding more contacts to his phone. “Can I have your number? I know Abel has it, but I’d like to put it in my phone, too.”

“Of course!” She took his phone and entered her information. When she handed it back, he looked down at the label she had given him, Aunt Dolores, exactly like what he called her in his head.

“I also thought,” she glanced at Abel, then seemed to steel herself. “That you might want to visit your parents while you are here. So, I gave Abel some directions to find where they are buried.”

Theo glanced at the box and all the memories he did not want to face. He did not really want to face his parents’ graves either, but if they were still alive and he was still in this situation, it would be them that he was sitting across from, not Aunt Dolores. He would have had to muster the courage to face them outside of guilt-laced memories and bouts of déjà vu. He could visit their graves.

“Thank you,” he managed to say, keeping his eyes lowered to his feet.

Fourteen years ago (about a year or so before the therapist scene)

“You’re causing the issues, you know,” his dad’s voice sounded harsh enough to make him want to run inside and hide. But then he would be alone in the dark house instead of in the bright sunshine yard with his mom, so he stayed put. Hopefully, his dad would go inside and take off his work boots soon because that always seemed to put him in a better mood.

“Let’s not do this right now, Bill,” his mom peered at his dad, shading her eyes against the sun. It was a beautiful day out, as she had said earlier, which meant they must spend it in the yard making daisy chains from all the flowers blooming in her gardens.

“You’re making this problem of his worse by bringing him everywhere you go,” his dad continued, deciding, despite his mom’s protests, that they were doing this now. “He’s never going to get over it if he doesn’t go play with other boys instead of making flower crowns and hanging onto his stuffed animals and your fucking skirt.”

“Bill, language.” His mom’s hand dropped to the side of Theo’s head and pressed it against her thigh.

“You’re making him into a little scaredy-cat pussy, Melissa.” His dad kept on going, boots stomping heavily up the driveway. Theo did not know what his dad meant, but by his mom’s sharp inhalation of breath, he thought it was probably not a good thing. “He’s not your little girl. He needs to start manning up.”

Theo looked down at the little daisy chain around his shark’s head. He fiddled with one of the petals and wondered why being with his mom and making flower crowns would make him into a girl instead of a boy. His dad seemed to have said everything he needed to say to get out all of his meanness from work, so he went inside without another word.

Maybe it was because Theo was too old to play with stuffed animals. He heard some of the other kids at school making fun of a girl because she still slept with stuffed animals. She even kept one in her bookbag, and they took it away and started throwing it around while she tried to get it back until she sat on the ground and cried, which made the teachers come over.

The kids got in trouble for throwing her stuffed animal around and making her cry, but they did not get in trouble for saying that she was a little baby for sleeping with stuffies. So maybe it was the truth, and the teachers agreed with the kids, except they still had to punish them for making her cry. Theo had not been there the whole time because the bell rang just as they were getting into trouble, but he wished he could have heard everything they said in scolding so that he would know if it was wrong for him to have a stuffed animal still, too. Just to be safe, he pretended that he did not. But he still needed his shark to sleep safely and soundly.

That's why he threw a fit when his dad tucked him into bed later that night and took his shark away. This made his dad even more frustrated. He was not angry at Theo. According to his mom, his dad could never get angry at him. He was frustrated. Enough to use his mean voice, like when he first got home from work. He even tossed Theo back onto the bed when he tried to crawl out from under the covers and reach for the shark.

He hated seeing his shark in his dad’s big hands with his sausage fingers squeezing, no doubt hurting the shark’s stuffing. Big, fat tears rolled down Theo’s cheeks as he wailed and reached forward again, propelled by a hurt in his chest that would not let him remain still on the bed the way his dad wanted him to. He just wanted to sleep with his shark. The kids and teachers at school did not have to know.

His dad walked out of the room and shut the door. With a resounding click, the lock that his parents had installed on the door slid home. And Theo was truly alone in his room. The light was still on, but it did not matter. Panic gripped him. He scrambled across the bed until his back was pressed to the wall, and he could see every inch of his room.

Except for beneath the bed, in the closet, and a few other shadowed corners, where the empty space was blocked from his line of sight by his dresser or desk. His eyes flicked between them. He hardly dared to blink. He hardly dared to breathe.

The tears were gone as he tried to be as silent as possible. His arms tugged his legs to his chest so he could try to become small. The darkness of his closet loomed. He could physically feel the empty space beneath his bed, squiggling and writhing with terrible creatures just waiting to wrap around his ankles and drag him down with them.

Everything felt like the creeping, chilly music that he heard from the TV when he snuck downstairs and saw his parents watching a scary movie late one night. He wanted to shut his eyes but could not even blink. If he did that, when he opened them, the monsters might have used the opportunity to move closer. He might open his eyes to find one just an inch from his face.

He had no idea how long he sat curled up like that before the lock clicked again. His mother stepped through the door, shark in hand. She came to sit on the edge of his bed and offer it to him.

“Your father was wrong to take it from you when it helps you sleep,” she said.

Theo snatched the shark up and petted its soft fuzz with gentle, reverent hands, soothing the places where his dad’s fingers had dug in and bruised the stuffing. “Mom?”

“Yes, sweetie.”

“Can you sleep in here with me tonight?”

Her face dropped, and she folded her hands in her lap. “No, you need to learn to sleep on your own.”

He dropped his eyes to look at the shark’s beady black ones. This was why his parents got a lock for his door. Because about a year ago, he suddenly became too afraid to sleep alone in his room and tried to get into their bed every night. Which was not okay. Next year, he would be in fifth grade, and the year after that, he would be in middle school. He was too old to want to sleep in his parents’ room. He was too old to have trouble sleeping on his own. He should not need a stuffed animal to sleep.

“Let me tuck you into bed,” his mom started pulling back the mess of covers he had made while scrambling after his shark and tucking himself against the wall. He climbed under the covers and she tucked them firmly around his shoulders. “There you go. Remember what I told you. Guardian angels are watching over you all night long so you can sleep peacefully.”

She kissed him on the forehead, then stood up. “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

The door shut, and the lock slid home with a click.