We learned later his name had been Taylor when he was alive.
Harper and I were in the living room under the big windows, basking in the afternoon sun. I was coloring a picture of a jack-o-lantern for Mom to put on the fridge so she would finally take down the beach painting I’d done in August. Harper was practicing braids on an old doll. Mom was in the kitchen washing dishes. The running water and her old radio drowned out the sound of the front door creaking open. Taylor walked in and took a seat on the couch.
I put down my crayons and stared at him even though I knew it was rude. Harper’s jaw hung loose.
“Hello?” I said.
Taylor turned his head toward us. With no eyes in his sockets, I’m not sure what he was looking at. He moved his bony shoulders in time with Mom’s radio.
It’s more than a feeling. He tried to mumble along with Boston. He sang alright, even without lips, a tongue, or a throat. I couldn’t begrudge him for being a little off-key. I went into the kitchen and tapped Mom on the hip. She jumped.
“Dammit Sam!” She said through a breathless laugh. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“I wasn’t sneaking.”
“What do you want?”
“When is Halloween?”
She sighed and turned back to the dishes. “Next Wednesday. It’s right on the calendar, Sammy. Come on.”
I returned to the living room. Harper was sitting on Taylor's lap—if you could call it a lap–and contemplating his hands. She practiced counting each segment of his fingers, and every time she miscounted, he tapped her on the nose. I grabbed her arm and pulled her away.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. Taylor couldn’t frown without a face, but he turned his head down. In the kitchen, Boston turned to Jefferson Starship, and Taylor stood up to groove along.
If only you believed in miracles like I believe.
Harper started to dance a little, but I made her stop. He clicked and clacked his bones together in a disjointed little dance. Eventually, he sat back on the couch and put his face in his hands. His shoulders bunched and shook. He didn’t say anything; he just kept mumbling along with the song.
I picked up my jack-o-lantern picture and flipped it over, offering him a green crayon. It looked so dark in his white fingerbones.
Dance? He wrote in a jagged scrawl.
“What does it say?” Harper demanded. She was still learning her letters.
“It says he’s tired and wants to go home.” Taylor turned his head, and this time, I knew he was looking right at me. I looked back.
“Do you sleep in a graveyard?” Harper asked, grabbing his arm. Her little hands wrapped around the bone. He nodded, but for some reason, I didn’t think it was true.
“If you had hair, would you let me braid it?” she asked, not letting go of his arm even as he headed back for the front door. He nodded again.
“Will you ever come back?”
Taylor stopped in the foyer and shook his head. Mom didn’t notice any of this. The water still hissed into the basin in the kitchen. Jefferson Starship was fading into Fleetwood Mac, a current of static running under the music.
Later, we found out his name was Taylor when he was alive. For years, Harper and I would joke about our afternoon with Taylor. It was especially fun to recall whenever Mom tried to say she wasn’t hard of hearing.
“You can’t hear a thing, ma,” I said at the bar after my uncle’s funeral. She wouldn’t stop complaining that she couldn’t hear the eulogies.
“Why does everyone have to mumble?”
“They weren’t mumbling. You don’t hear well.”
“You couldn’t hear a skeleton dancing in your living room,” Harper said, swirling her gin and tonic. Her hair was in two, perfect fishtail braids.
“That’s the most ridiculous aphorism I have ever heard, Harper. What does that even mean?”
“Is it an aphorism or an idiom?” Harper asked.
“Or an adage?” I suggested.
“Whatever it is, it’s just stupid. Don’t be going on about skeletons anyway. We’re at a funeral.”
Actually, we were at a dive bar.