The Last House on Needless Street

Though Little Teddy likes the nighttime and he loves sleeping next to his mother, before bed, Mrs. Bannerman tends to his injuries. Some are real scratches, but some are imaginary, and Mrs. Bannerman opens these with a scalpel and stitches them back up. Little Teddy dreads these home surgeries. Lauren is created to take on some of Ted’s pain. Unlike Little Teddy, Lauren is loud and angry.

One night, Mrs. Bannerman makes an incision on Little Teddy, making notes on the tape recorder. Lauren comes forward as usual to take on some of the pain. Ted knows the importance of keeping quiet and still; if he misbehaves, Mrs. Bannerman will drench him with hot water and vinegar in the freezer. However, the pain and sound of cutting flesh make him gasp, so Mrs. Bannerman lowers him into the freezer.

The pain Ted experiences in the freezer is too much. Ted and Lauren swap places, and Ted locks himself in the inside place.

Ted finds himself outside the front door to the house on Needless Street. Olivia greets him for the first time inside. The house is a near replica of the real one, except for the blue rug, which Ted hates: here, it is a beautiful orange color. Ted sits, petting Olivia. Night-time comes to him out of the dark.

Ted can enter the inside place whenever he wants, but it is easier if he goes inside the chest freezer.

Little Teddy still lives inside him. When Ted goes away, Little Teddy takes over. Because he is still a child, his expressions look disturbing on Ted’s adult face. It was Little Teddy who ran after the blonde woman on their failed date; he was trying to give her back her blue scarf, which she left behind.

Lauren is left alone to endure the pain. Mrs. Bannerman put them to bed. Ted sends Night-time upstairs so Lauren can rest. In the morning, Ted discovers that Night-time killed Snowball the mouse. Ted cries over Snowball more than sutures on his back.

Mrs. Bannerman takes Ted to the woods to bury Snowball and tells him to hide his nature. Ted lets her think he has his grandfather’s sickness. Lauren understands that it was Mrs. Bannerman that had inherited the sickness, not Ted.

Ted begins to call his inner world the weekend place. He discovers he can decorate it with all the things that are broken in real life, including the nesting doll and the music box. He makes peep-holes for Olivia and puts mice in the basement for Night-time. He puts the green boys, all the children who die at the lake, in the locked attic.

Ted can go to the weekend place whenever he wants, spending more and more time there, leaving Lauren alone with their mother. Lauren grows to hate Olivia because of the preferential treatment Ted shows her. Ted keeps Lauren in the freezer whenever Olivia is around.

Lauren understands how painful life can be. She tries to kill them but fails. Ted finds that he can subdue Lauren by hurting himself while playing their mother’s music. Lauren can still resurface sometimes instead of Little Teddy; this explains the notes she wrote and the times Ted regains awareness in the middle of a self-destructive act.

Mrs. Bannerman knows the police are onto her. She had been stitching up children at the kindergarten where she worked. Teddy finds his mother hanging a clothesline. She sends him to the store to get ice cream. She will be going out and she will leave something in the kitchen for Ted to dispose of in the woods. When Ted returns, he finds that his mother hanged herself on the clothesline in the kitchen. She left her favorite possessions for him to bury. The image of his mother’s hanging body is burned in Ted’s mind. He takes her body down, stores it under the kitchen sink, and cleans the mess beneath where she hung. Ted waits until dark. He buries her body and possessions in the glade near Snowball, whispering, “I hold you in my heart” (303).

The police come to Ted’s house two days later. Mrs. Bannerman had mailed the chihuahua lady a letter before she killed herself, explaining that she was going away for her health.

Lauren is six when she is created—the same age as Lulu. She grows slowly, becoming angrier throughout the years. Ted loves her for shielding him from pain. He has tried to act like a father, but he knows he has failed. Sometimes unexpected things appear in the weekend place, such as Lulu’s sandal and the green boys.

Rob says that his dog must have detected Olivia’s presence in Ted the time Olivia tried to get out. Rob says Linda Moreno—the chihuahua lady—has gone on a long cruise with a younger man without telling her daughter; the daughter panicked and reported her missing. Ted is relieved.

Ted’s hospital is where Mrs. Bannerman worked as a nurse. Things have come full circle. Something is nagging at the back of Ted’s mind about the chihuahua woman.

Rob returns the next day to take Ted home. They sit outside in the nice weather, drinking beers together. Ted feels almost normal—he has a friend at last. The tabby comes out and the man greets it. Ted asks Rob what it is like being a park ranger. Rob enjoys it; he prefers the outdoors.

Rob remarks that he and Ted have talked before at the gay bar. Ted does not remember due to being drunk or Little Teddy taking over. Ted’s newfound comfort in making a friend gives way to his anxiety that he is not a regular person. He asks Rob to leave, but he thinks better of it, stopping as Rob puts his seatbelt on. Ted apologizes and asks him to stay longer.

Rob tells Ted about his life. He has a twin brother, Eddie, but they had a falling out. Rob is gay. He started seeing a man from a restaurant in town. One night, the man saw Eddie, and mistaking him for Rob, took Eddie in his arms. Eddie beat the man unconscious. The man moved away, and Ron and Eddie stopped talking. Rob wanted to be away from people, and his job as a ranger is perfect for it. Ted remarks that if those events had not have happened to Rob, Ted might not be alive.

Rob leaves in the evening. Ted notices birds returning to the yard.

Night Olivia introduces the first episode of their “show,” “CATching up with Night Olivia” (311). Night Olivia can go “upstairs” and outside now, though they prefer Ted’s inner world. The tabby cat upstairs is not like the tabby that Night Olivia loves. Night Olivia is aware of Rob, and she does not like smelling the odor of his “brouhaha” on him, though Ted reminds her that the dog saved them. Ted seems to be coping fine without Olivia.

Night Olivia’s beloved tabby is another personality in Ted. As of yet, she is unwilling to communicate, but Night Olivia can wait.

Night Olivia recognizes the Lord as another personality; he sometimes visits the weekend place. They realize that it is Ted’s version of the Ankou.

The cord that bound Olivia and Ted is gone, and Night Olivia sometimes misses it. However, all of the personalities can coexist upstairs now, including some that are just coming to light. Night Olivia is at home upstairs as well as in the weekend place.

Ted and Rob go to the lake so Ted can pay his respects to Lulu. Ted stares out at the lake, thinking “I hold you in my heart” (314). Despite the cold, they take their shoes off and stand in the water. Nothing happens; Ted does not know what he expected.

Ted spies Lulu’s pretty pebble on the path. As he turns to show Rob, Ted slips and falls, reopening his newly healed wound. The pain rushes in; for the first time in years, Ted can feel it. Ted is shocked but welcomes it.

The pain allows Little Teddy through. Little Teddy says, “In our POCKET but you THREW it in the TRASH” (315). Ted reaches in his pocket and finds the list of potential murderers. He stares at the last name: Mommy. Little Teddy had added it. He was not talking about the murderer of the birds. Little Teddy’s memory rushes into Ted.

Little Teddy sees what happened the night before Ted buried his mother. He is in the living room, drawing on Ted’s job application with crayon. Linda Moreno, who is revealed as the chihuahua lady, gives Mrs. Bannerman her house keys so she can take care of her dog while Linda is in Mexico.

That night, Mrs. Bannerman leaves with an empty suitcase. Little Teddy worries she is leaving for Mexico as well. Mrs. Bannerman returns from the forest, suitcase heavy. She goes behind Linda’s house and comes back later, smelling of cellar dirt and humming uncharacteristically.

Little Teddy had tried to warn Ted, but Ted would not listen. Little Teddy can hear Ted crying.

Ted’s wound bleeds, but he makes Rob take him to a police station. Ted talks with a detective, who calls in Detective Karen. Ted explains the situation, and then Rob takes him to the emergency room, where they staple his wound. When they return to Needless Street, Linda Morales’s house is now a crime scene. The police exhume Lulu’s body from her cellar.

Ted tells Karen about Dee. In Dee’s house, they find Mrs. Bannerman’s cassette tape, which had her notes about Lulu. Karen thinks Lulu was already dead when Mrs. Bannerman found her. Ted thinks his mother mistook Lulu for a boy because of her short hair. Mrs. Bannerman never hurt girls.

Karen helps Ted remove the plyboard from the house’s windows. They sit on the porch drinking soda. Karen asks if he knows where Mrs. Bannerman is. Ted decides it is time his mother ceases being a god: she must be forgotten. Ted promises her Mrs. Bannerman is dead and gone. Karen thinks about it and replies, “Well then […] We never had this talk” (324).

The bug man is gone; his office is empty. Ted sees the bug woman now, another psychiatrist. She suggests he listen to the tapes he recorded. Ted hears some of his recipes and other thoughts. Then, he is astonished to hear Olivia’s recordings. Ted misses Olivia dearly, but she is gone, integrated with Night-time as Night Olivia. Ted hears other voices among the tapes, some that “don’t use language, but grunts and long pauses and clicks and high songs” (325). These are the personalities Ted locked in the attic, but he takes time to listen to them now.

There are many positive changes in Ted’s life. He can get restful sleep. He works as a dishwasher at a local diner, with the prospect of becoming a fry-cook. He and his other personalities are learning to coexist.

It is breakfast time, and Ted takes a moment to admire his new multicolored rug. He never realized he could throw away his mother’s blue one.

Ted finally makes his strawberry balsamic sandwiches, which his other personalities like. He narrates the recipe as he prepares it, then eats outside in the backyard flooded with birds.