All seven of us are in the dark living room, even my father. We’re watching The Maltese Falcon on a sixteen-inch Magnavox that our uncle didn’t want anymore. Sean and Danny, my smart-aleck teen-age brothers, stretch out on the floor, bed pillows under their heads, inches beneath the screen. My sister Irene and I lie on the floor behind them, fighting off sleep. We don’t want to miss this chance to stay up late.

My dad can see only shadows, so he’s not looking at the television, but he’s listening and Mama keeps him posted on what’s happening. He started going blind at least three years ago, when I was five, so I can’t remember him any other way. Kevin, the youngest, is asleep on the couch, his head in Mama’s lap.   

The movie is about a private detective named Sam Spade, with lots of people getting hunted down and beaten up and background music that warns you things are only going to get worse. Humphrey Bogart is the detective. There’s a beautiful lady in the movie who’s keeping secrets, and the bad guys are the worst of the worst. The huge fat man smokes cigars the size of flashlights and wears a watch bigger than a silver dollar, with a long chain draped across his barrel belly. His crony is a nasty little guy with a thin nasal voice that sounds like someone’s squeezing his tonsils. He mainly repeats what the fat man says, in case the threat wasn’t clear the first time. I’m not sure why they’re angry at Bogart now. In the beginning of the movie they hired him to find the missing falcon. Maybe I dozed off.

The fat man lights another cigar and the TV goes silent for a second before the commercial starts. “Hey, did you hear that?” Danny says.

“Hear what?” Mama says, but nobody else pays any attention. Danny doesn’t always feel he has to tell the truth. Back in fifth grade, when he got Fs in arithmetic and geography, he told Sr. Mary Theresa that Mama’s signature on his report card was shaky because the steering wheel broke her wrist in a car accident and it wasn’t healed yet. We don’t have a car and my mother can’t drive, but the story got him through the next marking period and kept Sr. Mary’s ruler off his knuckles for a while.

“The doorknob,” Danny says. “The doorknob was turning.”

“Shut up and watch the movie,” Sean tells him, still staring at the screen. The movie is on again and Bogart is holding the fat man’s slimy little helper by the lapels, his fist to his face.

Danny stays quiet, but when the theme music fades he says it again. “That’s the doorknob.”

“I heard it,” Daddy says. And the room goes quiet. “Turn that down.”

I can hear Irene breathing heavy as Sean jumps up to turn the dial on the TV and Daddy reaches for the cane he keeps within reach, then stands up, shuffles to the door. We live in a basement apartment with a dark narrow hallway outside the door. Daddy is the superintendent of the building, takes care of putting the garbage cans out, cleaning the halls, stuff like that. The landlord gives us a discount on the rent, so we all help out. The front door of the apartment building—which is pretty big, five stories—is never locked. I’m scared someone may have gotten in.

At the door, Daddy waves his arm behind him, his way of telling us to be quiet. Sean and Danny stand close beside him.

“There it is again,” Danny whispers.

Sean peeks over his shoulder at us, eyes big as headlights, looking even more scared than he did when Great-Aunt Bridget died and they waked her in Grandma’s living room. It took weeks before he could sleep again. “Dad, the knob is turning,” he says, before my father can quiet him.

“Who’s there?” Daddy calls, his voice deep—with that no-nonsense edge, the kind we know to run from. No one answers. Irene and I are in a frozen panic on the floor, our hands pressed between our knees to keep them from trembling. Mama is breathing fast. On the screen, Bogart hides behind a door, ready with his gun, waiting for the bad guys.

“I said who’s there?” Daddy shouts, but he still gets no answer. He listens for a few seconds, then calls to Mama, sounding like an angry cop. “Mary, go get my gun.”

We don’t have a gun. We don’t even own a knife sharp enough to slice roast beef, which isn’t a big problem since we can’t afford any. “Oh, my god,” Mama whispers, her palms to her cheeks. It’s an Irish whisper, the kind you can hear three rooms away.

The doorknob rattles, and Daddy slams his palm against the door. “If I open up, you’re a dead man,” he growls. I hope whoever is out there doesn’t think he’s bluffing, because he doesn’t.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Mama chants, but there’s no answer from them either. She jumps to her feet and heads for the kitchen. Kevin startles awake, crying.

“Somebody shut him up,” Daddy says. Irene sits up, reaches over to stroke Kevin’s leg, tells him everything’s okay. He’s only five, but he’s no dope. He knows we’re all about to die. Irene manages to quiet him down but his mouth hangs open like he’s ready to wail, like he’s sure we’re no match for any burglar. But if the guy gets in, what’s he going to steal anyway? The Magnavox?

Mama rushes out of the kitchen with a broom, goes into the big bedroom, which is just beyond the French doors that separate it from the living room, and opens a window that faces the street. Our apartment is below street level with an iron fence that lines the length of the building. She leans half-way out the window with the broomstick in her hands, shouting hey there, hey there. She reaches as far over the windowsill as she can, trailing the broom stick along the iron rails, a clanging, deafening racket that doesn’t bother the burglar one bit, because the doorknob rattles again.

“Hey there,” Mama yells. “Hey there.”

“For fuck’s sake, what’s she doing?”

“She’s leaning out the window with the broom,” Sean says.

“Go tell her to knock it off.”

Sean leaps over Irene and me and lands in the bedroom. I watch him wrestle the broom from her grasp.

Daddy grips his cane with both hands, rests it on his shoulder. “I’m warning you. You’re a dead man,” he shouts. “Danny, open the door.” I hold my breath while the woman in the movie grabs a gun. She stands across the room from Bogart and for a second, it looks like she’s aiming it at him.

Daddy raises the cane above his head, the mean red tip poised to crack someone’s skull. Danny opens the door. I brace myself for a scream or a moan or the thud of a fallen body, but the cane chops air, because there’s no one standing in the hall.

Over the top of my knees, pulled against my chest, I see the white tip of Mr. Marley’s tail keeping time like a band leader as he strolls into the living room, looking fed up with the whole lot of us.

For what seems like the longest time, the only sound in the room is Humphrey Bogart yelling at the beautiful lady, telling her he’s got no time for her schoolgirl act, until Danny’s laughter cuts through. “What the hell’s going on?” Daddy says, because he can’t see Mr. Marley. Danny tries to answer but he can’t get the words out.

“The cat,” Sean tells him. “It was the cat.” I can tell he’s trying not to laugh, but Irene and Kevin start giggling.

“What do you mean the cat?” Daddy doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s funny.

“It was Marley,” Danny says. “He must have been jiggling the doorknob.”

At the sound of his name, Mr. Marley twitches his ears and circles around, ambles in Daddy’s direction. I look away, afraid of what might happen. Bogart’s not yelling at the lady anymore. He’s kissing her. It’s so confusing.

“Goddam cat,” Daddy says.

Everybody gets quiet again because nobody is sure what’s coming next. He may kick Mr. Marley back out the door or send him flying across the room. It’s happened before.

“No point in getting all upset about a cat,” Mama says, her tone too casual, too calm, the tone she uses to keep Daddy from smashing lamps

Still grumbling, Daddy slams the door closed.

Mr. Marley stops in front of him like he’s expecting a treat or something. I don’t want to see him get hurt, but I can’t look away. Irene calls Mr. Marley to her, but he won’t come. He rubs his side against Daddy’s pantleg, meowing like he’s pissed off, the way he gets when there are no leftovers for him.

Daddy bends over, groping for the cat, so Mama tries again. “He meant no harm, Jim.” He feels for the cat at his feet and I take in a sharp breath, but then he strokes Mr. Marley behind the ears, and the lump in my chest loosens.

“Go get him some milk,” Daddy tells Sean.

“We ain’t got no milk,” Danny says.

“Jeez,” Daddy sighs, like he’s exhausted, maybe tired of how nothing ever changes.

“Then get him a beer.”

Danny and Sean laugh hard. Mama too. The fear that filled the room goes back into hiding. Then, back into the walls, the curtains, back into our skin. All of them are laughing, so they don’t see the police detective pick up the Maltese Falcon, ask Bogart what it is. “The stuff dreams are made of,” Bogart says. The bad guys thought the falcon was worth millions, but it turned out to be junk, so I’m pretty sure he means things aren’t what they seem. Bogart’s right about that. I never know for sure how anything will turn out around here, even when all the signs are plain to see.