Incidents Around the House
by Malerman, Josh
Contents
Chapter 12
Overview
After the party, a shaken Daddo stays in Bela’s room, talks at length while thinking she is asleep, and reveals that Marsha’s scream has made Bela’s stories harder for him to dismiss. When the closet opens twice, Daddo first rationalizes it and then physically blocks it, showing his fear has become more direct.
The chapter’s key shift comes when Bela connects Other Mommy’s talk of reincarnation to a literal body swap. Bela ends the night understanding that Other Mommy does not just want friendship or entry into her heart, but wants Bela’s place in the world.
Summary
Late after the party, Daddo sits on Bela’s bed believing Bela is asleep, while Bela stays still because Bela does not want to be left alone with the closet. Bela thinks about Marsha seeing Other Mommy and worries that Other Mommy is no longer visible only to Bela. Bela also notices Mommy is missing and fears what that absence might mean.
Daddo rambles while drunk and stoned, mostly to himself. He talks about adulthood as a mixture of happiness and sadness and uses the memory of a dead classmate, Quinn Dole, to explain what it means to experience change, fear, love, and survival. His speech shows that Marsha’s scream and Bela’s earlier stories have unsettled him, because he eventually asks whether Marsha really saw what Bela has claimed to see.
Daddo then turns toward the closet and directly addresses anything that might be in the house, ordering it to leave. When the closet doors creak open, Daddo approaches, checks them with his phone light, and decides a loose hinge is the cause. He fetches a screwdriver, repairs the hinge, and tries to reassure Bela by saying that fear is something people survive and that surviving it is part of being alive.
When Bela finally speaks, Bela asks whether reincarnation is bad. Daddo calls reincarnation beautiful, but Bela keeps pressing about what happens if one person comes back in someone else’s body. The question makes clear that Bela is thinking about Other Mommy’s earlier claims. Before Daddo can fully explore that, the closet doors open again. This time Daddo quickly shuts them, wedges a chair under the handle, and decides to sleep in Bela’s bed.
Daddo soon passes out, leaving Bela awake beside him in the dark. Alone with Bela’s thoughts, Bela understands Other Mommy’s offer more clearly: Other Mommy wants to enter Bela’s body, send Bela where Other Mommy comes from, and have them trade places. Horrified by that realization yet still feeling a confusing pull of former friendship, Bela watches the closet, begs Other Mommy not to come closer, and tries to force sleep while Daddo snores beside her.
Who Appears
- BelaPretends to sleep, listens to Daddo, and realizes Other Mommy wants to swap bodies with her.
- DaddoStays in Bela’s room after the party, talks drunkenly, challenges the closet, and sleeps beside Bela.
- Other MommyThreatening presence in the closet whose earlier talk of reincarnation now appears to mean taking Bela’s body.
- MommyAbsent for the whole scene, deepening Bela’s anxiety and uncertainty after the party.
- MarshaHer earlier scream and apparent sighting of Other Mommy make Bela’s claims harder to dismiss.