I’d led Gretchen and Rick through the rooms on the main floor, Ron opting to wait outside while we looked around. Upstairs, I somehow managed to show them the features — the primary bedroom and bath, a balcony off the seating area, gesturing to the doorway of my old bedroom. “Guest plus bath,” I’d said, letting Gretchen and Rick enter alone, not wanting the memories of those last few months to clutter my mind.
Today, though, I’m early. I glance at my phone again, hoping I’ll see something from Kat. She’s been quiet for weeks, ignoring my texts and calls. Veronica hasn’t heard from her either. A flicker of worry passes through me as I imagine her trying to figure out how to pay off that credit card on her own. There’s no way she can manage it on what she’s been writing lately—articles about cuticle care and the power of essential oils.
I’m almost certain Kat believes I was the one who opened the credit card and ran up all that debt. I don’t know exactly how much she knows about where I’ve been for the past ten years, but every job I’ve done would indicate I’m exactly who she thinks I am—a con artist, an opportunist, twisting reality to suit my purposes. Setting up a politician with one hand while simultaneously stealing money from a down-on-her-luck journalist with the other. Which means she’ll be even more determined to expose me. To write something that will not only pay well, but finally open the door to bigger publications. I knew this was who she was from the beginning; I can’t be angry with her about it now.
I flip through my keys until I find the right one. “The front door is made of oak, milled from a forest in Virginia. A tree that probably greeted the colonists of Jamestown before arriving here to keep us safe.” My words a quiet whisper under the covered porch that still smells exactly as I remember—grass and mildew from stucco that never completely dries.
I step into the cool foyer, taking in the space. The house is now empty of Ron’s horrible chrome and leather furniture, and I can let the ghosts return. Take the time to finally say goodbye. I move through the downstairs, past the main staircase with a window seat on the landing, passing into a family room once lined with bookshelves.
The house may be different, but its landmarks are the same. The railing on the wall as I ascend the back staircase is the same texture, with the same divots and dips in the wood. I run my hand along it, reacquainting myself. The fourth stair still creaks in exactly the same way I remember, and I spend a minute there, passing up and down, just so I can hear it. I close my eyes, pretending my mother is still alive, still in the house with me, just out of sight around the corner; any moment she’ll speak. Hurry up, slowpoke.
A dog barking from a distant yard snaps me back to the present. I continue up the stairs, making my way to my old bedroom, the one with the dormer window overlooking the backyard and the walk-in closet where the slant of the roof meets the floor at a 45-degree angle.
I stand in the middle of the space, trying to find my younger self, but it’s hard. Nothing is the same. The paint, flooring, and moldings—it’s all been replaced, though the upgrades are cheap. Plastic blinds on the windows instead of wood, fiberglass in the bathrooms instead of the original porcelain.
I turn toward the closet, hoping Ron has somehow left it alone, and reach for the knob, holding tight to the memory of the interior wall marked with scuffs from my shoes. The sagging rod where I’d once hung my clothes. And in the back, on the far wall, the scratches and hash marks of a height chart. I can still see them in my mind, horizontal lines, and next to them, Nana’s faded handwriting.
Rosie 8-27-78
Rosie 12-17-82
And in darker marker, my mother’s writing, as familiar as a song I know by heart.
Meggie 2-4-93
Meggie 10-26-98
But when I turn the knob and open the closet, a light illuminates automatically, revealing the laminate shelving of a California Closets installation. The air is sterile, the floor beneath my feet shiny, the wall I remembered and everything written on it relegated to a garbage dump years ago.