House

I wandered around the drafty house needing something to occupy my mind. Unlike the luxurious bedroom, the rest of the house was sparsely furnished. After years of moving around, I hadn’t accumulated many belongings and was tentative to buy anything new: I wanted little to chain me down.

I rambled through the house obsessively setting things right: a crooked picture on the wall, a couch that wasn’t perfectly parallel with the picture window, and the computer monitor that was tilted at an odd angle. I gazed at the pictures that lined the modest mantle. Each one told a different story of my life in order: picture of a miniature me playing with my grandfather, my toothless grin in third grade, David and me at Freshman Homecoming, high school graduation, wedding pictures, an unhappy picture of me at college, grad school graduation, and a Polaroid of me getting the keys to this house. The only things missing from this timeline of photos was Jonas’s funeral and mom’s headstone.

As if under a wizard’s spell, I dug the dusty suitcases out from under the bed and began to fill them. I hadn’t used the suitcases since I moved to this mountain valley two years before. If I traveled, I required only an overnight bag or a camping backpack. I was unaware I was packing until I was nearly done with the task; I wondered if it was the lingering effects of the sleeping pills. The suitcases were happy to receive sweaters, jeans, and the like. Packing for winter in Iowa was no light task.

Albert silently padded after me all through the house. My watch dog although I think the only thing he watched was me. Albert provided me with the companionship and comfort I was unable to get from people. Silently, we were better able to communicate than most of my friends.

The house moaned and sighed, resigned to release me to the outside world for a few days. Ever since I was little girl I’d assigned human characteristics to everything I came in contact with: houses, dogs, trees, toasters. I believed everything had a way to communicate if only we were able to slow down enough and be silent within our souls to listen. I found this to be the only way to understand the world around me as my life had proved infinitely mysterious and incomprehensible. I listened to the house wondering what it was thinking and saying. It moaned and swayed in the wind asking me why I had to go. Yet, Iowa beckoned. No matter how hard I tried to ignore it, it pulled me like moth drawn to a flame, and I knew I’d get burned.