Does he still live there?
I lost touch with Rory after high school graduation and never saw him or his family during my infrequent visits here over the years. Due to his sort of brooding, creative persona, I can see him as aguerilla artist living in San Francisco now. Or a failed New York City poet surviving off wired checks from his rich hippie parents. Or maybe he still lives here, on Lake Blair, stunted from becoming anything at all.
Our neighbors to the right are the Bensons, who definitely still live in their house, but only seasonally. And right now, I’d consider this off-season. Meaning they’re probably back in Los Angeles, excitedly shoving their kids off to private school.
Although we’re at the top of a private driveway, Mom wanted us to be part of the neighborhood. She was always getting everyone together for soirees or potlucks. Our house was regularly full of people and life.
I shudder at the thought of how ominously empty it’s been recently.
I hit the gas and cruise around the corner until I reach the top of the driveway. When I park, my mouth fills with saliva, nausea taking over. I didn’t plan for this part. The getting out. The walking to the door, the entering of the house. And I didn’t think about how much it was going to hurt going through all her things once I finally made it inside. I’d probably see unused and nearly spoiled cookie dough sitting in her fridge, begging to be baked by her. Or I’d get random wafts of the cinnamon pine cones that have always sat on her mantel. Or recognize her handwriting on random Post-it notes within her desk drawers.
Part of me didn’t plan on making it here at all. There was always the possibility I’d get into a head-on collision during the gloomy drive over, relieving me from living with this bottomless melancholy.
But here I am. Staring at the front door of the first place I ever lived. The house Mom brought me to from the hospital. The house I inhabited for my first nineteen years.
Amelia isn’t here yet, so I wait in the car, happy to push off the unimaginable for as long as possible.
I’m not going in there alone,I tell myself.
But the “pushing this off” thing turns into anxiety and anticipation. And I no longer want any part of it. I want to burst through the door and get it done and move forward.
I grab my cell phone from the cupholder and check Amelia’s location, hoping she left at our agreed time. Knowing her, I’m surprised she didn’t arrive before me. I look at the reading on my location app.
Amelia, Blair, WA • Now, 1 mile
As the rain lets up, I exit my car and stand in the driveway, allowing my eyes to roam across the Tudor-style home. I can’t help but smile at its gables, and original front door, and tree-covered serenity. To anyone else, the sight could evoke visions of baked goods in the windowsill or a straw-hatted woman trimming shrubs in the English knot garden on the west side of the house. I let myself imagine that for a few lovely moments, until it’s wiped out by all the sadness spilling from its attractive chimney. As though when I finally open the front door, I’ll be knocked off my feet by the physicality of its gloom.
I walk to the edge of the property to glance at the lake, sloshing away from the mild, late-September storm. The leaves are just starting to turn and fall from their hosts, painting the scene with red and orange and yellow.
This was Mom’s favorite time of year, and she just missed it.
Lost in thought, I jump a little when I hear Amelia’s car pulling up, pebbles popping under her car’s tires. Before her car even stops bouncing from being thrown into park, she leaps out and hugs me. It’s the kind of hug I lose myself in and dread the moment we willpull apart. Because for this moment, time stops. I feel warm and safe. It’s been nearly a week since I’ve seen her, yet somehow it feels like the first time we’ve been in the other’s presence sincebefore.Neither of us says a word; we just cry for a long while into each other’s shoulder.
I don’t know how I will bear the weight of this pain for the rest of my life, and I don’t want to. I’m desperate to rewind and find a way to undo it.
Throughout my entire school career, from elementary to high school, the sirens of ambulances passing my school struck stark fear into me that Mom had died in some kind of accident. That in the moment I was hearing the wailing, her body was being carted away to the hospital one town over, minutes away from being pronounced dead, and I’d never see her again. I’d get a note from my teacher that the principal wanted to see me. And there, a police officer would be waiting to deliver the earth-shattering news that my mother didn’t make it and that I was parentless. To get ahead of the panic, I’d covertly slip her a text message telling her I loved her, or I’d ask her what she was doing. Until I heard back, my heart would be thumping in agony, deducing my suspicions to fact. When I’d finally detect the vibration in my pocket, accompanied by the wordMom, I could take air in again.
Despite imagining her death innumerable times, I never truly thought about when it would happen. At least not until I was much older, when I had kids of my own. Until she was feeble and delicate, and we saw it coming distantly. Its instantaneous nature couldn’t have been further from anticipated.
Amelia drops her arms and pushes her forehead against mine, likely mirroring my thoughts.
I stare at her. The girl who looks like me, but different. Reddish hair to my blonde, straight nose to my curved. Same blue-green eyes and heart-shaped lips. Like Mom’s, too.
I wipe the mascara flakes off our cheeks and take a deep breath, holding Amelia’s hand. My bangs push off my face as the howling wind sweeps those newly fallen leaves around our feet, dancing as though we’re at a party. I want to kick them for having so much fun.
Despite the bit of distance, I can hear the Holloways’ wind chimes collide, mimicking clanging church bells in a vacant courtyard. This sets an eerier tone for what I’m about to do, but we clunk along the flagstone walkway to the front door anyway and brace for emotional impact.
I fumble with my keys to find the one for the house and nearly crash into the entry’s coatrack as the security system robot voice blares in my right ear:“Front door open.”
Yes, Iknowthe front door is open,I think.I’m the one opening it.
I turn toward the panel, hoping to switch it off, nearly hitting the Panic button instead, which would surely send police swarming. I shrug, giving up, hoping the notifications will become a comfort.
As I spin around, I’m struck with the smell of winter spices from those pine cones on her mantel. The ones I knew would be there.
It feels like she’s here with us now. Like at any second, she’ll round the corner, ready to greet me with her bright white smile and awkward hug, bending over and squeezing my abdomen like she’s the child. Her positive effervescence glowed; it was tangible. She was everyone’s favorite person.
I pull my damp boots off and place them on the rack by the door, turning up the thermostat above it to warm the house, which presently is chilly and depressing. Amelia just stands in the living room looking around, not saying anything. She walks around the house aimlessly, visibly lost and likely wishing one of the exposed beams above would fall and crush her.
