Annabelle had always been an anxious child. With her long black, whip-straight hair and fair, unblemished skin, she reminded me of the porcelain doll that sat on my grandmother’s shelf. The one we were never allowed to play with. When she learned to talk, she began regularly having panic attacks.
Annabelle and I shared a room until we were teenagers. At first, we had a queen-sized bed, but later, having decided it was time for us to be big girls, our parents bought us each our own twin bed. The nighttime was the worst of all, and after the lights were shut off, Annabelle would make me promise she wasn’t going to die in her sleep. I’d make the promise, despite my reluctance. I knew I could never be an authority on the matter. But I always got up and pushed our beds together so she would be less afraid.
One afternoon, William and I were playing with his Batman and Robin action figures in the living room. He had carefully removed them from their packaging, to which they were always returned, resealed, and stacked neatly in his dresser drawer. It was tranquil and glittery outside, and light shone through the lace curtains onto the carpet in a kaleidoscopic pattern.
“Come on, Robin,” William said, adjusting the arms of his figurine. “Follow me.”
I clutched Robin by the waist, making him hop up and down as I moved him along the floor, following Batman. “Let’s get the bad guys.”
Playtime halted as Annabelle’s panicked cries reached us from upstairs. We dropped the toys and ran up the steps, taking them two at a time. The first thing I saw were her pale legs facing out, dangling between the wooden rails of the staircase from the second floor. Then, as I took more stairs, her waist-length French braids and head, trapped between them. She was sobbing and calling for our mother, but she wasn’t there, and neither was our father.
William reached for her and held her little face in his hands, squishing her cheeks together. “Anna, you need to try and calm down. We’re going to get you out, I promise.”
Annabelle was jerking her head violently like a caught animal. I turned away. She looked so desperate, so scared. I couldn’t watch.
“Gracie, I need you to go to the kitchen and get some butter,” William instructed.
I nodded, ran to the kitchen, and grabbed a block from the fridge. I started unwrapping its grey aluminum as I moved; stumbling, I caught myself on the rail. It had already begun melting in my hand as I passed it to William.
“Anna, I’m going to put some butter on your cheeks, okay? Then you should be able to slide out.”
Her dark brown doe eyes were fixed on him as she gave the slightest nod.
“Deep breaths, just like we practiced.” They began inhaling in unison as he buttered her cheeks. They exhaled together.
“Pull your head back. On the count of three: one, two, three.” William guided her head backwards, but it remained stuck. She wailed and began thrashing again, her cheeks becoming taut and then plump with the railing’s pressure. As her screaming intensified, my heartbeat throbbed from my throat to my fingertips.
William dropped the butter on the carpet and sprinted up the stairs, rounding the corner so he was standing behind Annabelle. “Anna, listen. I need you to trust me, okay?”
Droplets of tears were now falling, clinging to her spidery lashes. “Okay.”
“Move your head over here.” He reached over the railing so she could see as he pointed to the left. “And stay still, like when we play freeze-tag. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded, and I moved to wipe the tears from her cheeks with the back of my sleeve. I smiled, halfheartedly.
William motioned to me with his head, a slight tilt, and I knew. “It’s going to be okay,” I whispered.
William’s leg shot forward and I clamped down on her face, locking it in place. The flat of his foot hit the railing. I shrieked, and so did Annabelle. William’s foot raised up again, over and over, kicking furiously until the wood snapped, and our sister was free.
We all hid in William’s bedroom until our parents returned later that evening. Our father saw the damage and called us into the kitchen. “What the hell happened to the railing?”
William replied with his head down. “Anna got stuck. We couldn’t get her out.”
My mother was standing at the kitchen counter with her back to us, cigarette in her mouth, working a mound of red clay that sat on a pile of old newspaper.
“Why didn’t you call Mr. Butler? I told you, if there’s ever an emergency to call next door. The goddamn number is right here.” Our father jabbed at a piece of paper stuck to the fridge, a phone number scribbled in his illegible handwriting.
“She was scared.” William’s voice was small, barely audible. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“Do you think money grows on trees? Who’s going to pay to fix it, huh? Do you have a secret job I don’t know about?”
I stared at the floor, counting the floorboards in my head.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen—
“Go to your rooms, all of you. I don’t want to look at you.”
My mother didn’t even turn around.