Free Glass Shatters by Michelle Meyers Page A

chirping and the kids are playing and that allaround families are rejoicing together. I don’t know what to do with him. Even if he’s not my father, the resemblance is there, an uncle, a grandfather, a cousin on my father’s side. He’s mine, my blood, and there’s nothing else for me to do.
    I rub my thumb against the prom photo still tucked into my left palm, Julie nuzzled into the crook of Charles’s arm, wearing his tuxedo jacket, her head pushing his bow tie askew, their smiles all flash. It’s the only photo I could find of Julie and Charles together.
    I keep thinking of this past Charles in the third person. It’s like I’m watching some sort of majestic, surreal film featuring an actor who looks identical to me. But I can’t enter this film, there’s a screen preventing it, and as much as I’d like to stick one foot in, it’s impossible. Because it’s not my film. It’s not my life. Not anymore, at least.
    “Charles!” a voice calls out, and I turn to see Iris, watering the azaleas on her front porch. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
    “Was I walking fast?”
    “Like your life depended on it.”
    “Oh, I didn’t realize. I guess I’m just nervous. I’m going back to work.”
    “Charles, you can’t walk there, it’s three miles away, and in this weather, you’re going to drown in your own sweat before you make it.” Iris shakes out the last few drops from her watering can onto the grass, rolling up the muddy cuffs of the men’s overalls she wears. “Come on, it’s my day off and I was going downtown anyway to run some errands. Just let me get changed and then I’ll give you a ride. What time are they expecting you?”
    “There’s no rush.” I follow Iris into the house. The truth is that they’re not expecting me. I don’t even really know where I’m going. I had a dream last night where I paced back and forth in front of a generic beige building with the address 1247 Shelby Ave., wearing a lab coat with a bloody handprint on the pocket. When I woke up this morning, some part of me knew that’s where I needed to go next. The blood, I hoped, was just a product of my imagination. My plan was to wander toward downtown and find the lab. While this plan partially resulted from the fact that there was no computer at the house I could use to look up a map on Google, no phone that I could use to call a cab, I also liked the idea of exploring Hillston on foot. Maybe I hoped that investigating my surroundings might provide some sort of useful information. And maybe I liked the idea of getting lost. But I was being naïve. I should go with Iris. I needed to continue to be practical, to rely on logic if I was going to make any progress.
    “You ready?” Iris asks. She’s put on chinos and a clean linen blouse. I startle, dropping the photo of Julie and Charles onto the kitchen’s tiled floor. I scramble to my knees, picking it up with a quick swoop. If Iris notices, she pretends she hasn’t.
    The neighborhood feels foreign as Iris drives us down the street. The evidence so far suggests that I grew up here, that there should be memories everywhere. Instead, everything feels off. The blue of the sky is too saturated, the neighbors’ smiles threatening. There’s a breeze blowing and yet the air is still. I feel dozens of sets of eyes on me, although I can’t tell whose eyes they are.
    But then we approach a house down at the far end of thestreet, a house overgrown with green ivy, a gray thatched roof leaning low. A cobblestone pathway leads up to the front door. A colony of hang-headed scarecrows, worn with age, congregates in the yard. The front windows are made of stained glass, casting bright, slanted shadows across the living room’s hardwood floor. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a house with so many stained glass windows before. A plume of smoke curls up from behind the house, and a warm feeling rises in my chest.

    November 7, 1984
    Age Six

    T he young boy Charles runs