NEXT DOOR.

I remember the day she moved next door. 

My mother said, “Don’t stare, Peter.  I know she doesn’t look like you do, but there’s nothing wrong with her.  There’s nothing… she’s just different.  She doesn’t process things the same way that you and your sisters do, but that doesn’t make her different, okay?”

“But you just said—”

My mom rolled her eyes.  “Forget what I said.  You need to be nice, okay?  Her name is Eden.”  She laid her hands flat over the front of my shirt as if pressing it for wrinkles.  “Are you gonna be nice?”

I nodded and took her hand as she practically dragged me across the thick grass toward two people.  One was a man with bright red hair.  He was probably the same age as my dad with legs the color of baking flour, sitting inside of a sandbox across from a girl about my age.  Her hair was dark brown and curly—so very curly—cut close to her head in short ringlets tipped with sand. 

She rocked back and forth and stared at the man, clapping her hands together until he broke the spell by pointing to us.

“Eden, look,” he said in a near-whisper.  “Do you remember Jean?  From yesterday?”

The girl looked at my mom, slowly taking her in, before nodding.  “Jean,” she said softly to her father.

“That’s right.  And this is her son.  His name is Peter.  Can you say Peter?”

She looked over again, her eyes having trouble focusing on my face.  When she found them, she gave me a gentle, lazy smile.  “Peter,” she said.

“That’s right.  Do you think that maybe Peter could sit in the box with you?”

She shook her head.  “No, I don’t think so,” she said calmly.

“Oh, come on,” the red-haired man said jovially before standing.  “He’s not gonna bite you.  He’s just going to help you build a castle.  I bet Peter is great at building castles.”  He looked over at me and smiled widely.

I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say, so I just nodded once and looked up at my mother. 

I was supposed to be nice.  I was supposed to be nice.

“Eden,” the red-haired man repeated.  “Can Peter sit here with you?”

“Peter,” she said quietly.

“That’s right.  Peter.  Peter, do you want to sit here?”

I didn’t.  I really didn’t want to sit there with this girl I didn’t know and build anything.  I wanted to sit in my room and listen to my new record.  I mean, did this Eden girl even have any records?  It was too hot out and she had sand in her hair and she wasn’t even bothering to try to get it out and… her dad didn’t even notice.  Or if he did, he didn’t even say anything and… I was supposed to be nice.

“Yeah.  Okay,” I said.

I took a seat on the hot sand across from her and picked up a small rake and a few cups.  There was a little bucket of water next to the box and a few shovels.  Eden stared at me as I started to dig.

Before long, our parents were gone and I was stuck there with the curly-haired girl with the gap between her teeth who kept repeating my name every time I packed the cup with sand and dumped it over to add to what was quickly becoming a castle.

Sometimes she added a clap, but she always said my name, even if I was doing nothing other than tolerating the miserable day and her existence.

Even if I was just being nice.

But the next day, I came back.  We built another castle—well, I did and she watched—until it was time for dinner.  Eden was quiet that day, scratching behind her ear a lot and moaning a few times.  I’d asked my mom about it when I got home, but she just used the same excuse she had before—that she was “different” and that she didn’t “process things the same way” that I did.

Fifty-seven days, I went to that sandbox.

On the fifty-eighth day of summer, she was gone.

The red-haired man had sent her to go live with her mother.  My mom explained to me that sometimes grownups made decisions that were hard for kids to understand, but that I would get it when I was older.

I’m still waiting.