Haunted Houses

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Her father liked to scare her. He knew she adored him. He’d creep into her room early in the morning or late at night and jump on her and she’d cry. He’d console her with kisses and hugs. Years later Jane would say, It’s a hard habit to break. Loving madmen. Jane’s parents, particularly her father, had wanted a son, having two girls already, and had waited nearly seven years before making the unsuccessful attempt to have him. Jane’s mother would need an operation after Jane’s birth, which would put an end once and for all to her childbearing days, but Jane was innocent of this fact, as well as their desire for a son. Otherwise she was not a difficult birth.

At two she had tried to claim her father as her own, covering his face with her little body, and shouting, He’s my daddy, my daddy, to her much older sisters, who could dismiss that kind of behavior as babyish. But Jane was driven. She became Daddy’s girl to the chagrin of her mother, who had her hands full anyway. The third child is always the easiest, she heard her mother say to a woman who was visiting. It’s like she’s raising herself.

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