I pulled up to the house, shifted my mother’s Neon into park, drew a deep reassuring breath, and stepped from the car. The house stared at me daring me to enter. The red colonial brick and white trimmed windows glared now more maliciously than I’d remembered. It was the kind of house I’d yearned for as a child, a place where white picket fence dreams transpired. Today, a sadness as cold as the Iowa January day seemed to be sprinkled over the property.
My husband, Sean, had grown up in this house. I’d always ascribed warmth with his presence; a happier day while he’d slept under the eaves. However, AIDS robbed us of his physical warmth eight years ago. His mother, Maureen, discovered the comfort of razor blades six months later. David, Sean’s father, was the only inhabitant left standing until a year ago when an infection overran his life cup. I now owned the house.
I opened the front door and was greeted by silence. It was the sort of silence that promised to chew you up and spit you out on another edge of reality and I looked like lunch. What had I expected? The haunting of ghosts, malevolent spirits, or eerie horror movie music.
The lawyer had paid a cleaning service to make the house presentable. But it felt almost lived in. I wanted dust bunnies and the moldy smell of a closed up house. I wanted it to feel dead.
Photo: mytragicblood
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