DWIGHT STREET

There’s an eerie quietness to the House as we sit, sifting through old family photos and sorting them into an “Ours,” “Theirs,” and “Toss" pile - a pile reserved for photos of nameless faces whose remaining threads of familial connection have finally been severed. 

It’s just my sister and I sitting on the old tan shag carpeting of the living room, rummaging through the photo bins as we wait. The carpeting feels like wool scratching my bare legs as I sit cross-legged in the middle of the floor. I’m the idiot who wore shorts, I tell myself as I try to nonchalantly itch my legs in an attempt to not draw my sister’s attention. Normally I wouldn’t worry about hiding any discomfort brought on by my shoddy wardrobe choices but it’s 48 degrees outside and I could use one less reminder from Kenzie that I was always the dumbass who wore shorts up here in December. Apparently Florida fashion doesn’t transcend midwest standards once the temperature nears zero. 

But there we sit, with merely the dull crackle of the Furnace and tap tap of falling leaves hitting the warped glass of the House’s old windows. Windows that have stood vigilant over the neighborhood for the last century. Windows that watched my Mom and her Brother grow up and then eventually my sisters and I.

A tightness forms in my chest as we sit waiting. Waiting for our Grandparents to come back home, so we can put all of their things back on the various shelves and pretend like nothing ever changed. Waiting to forget what they have forgotten and the diagnoses they have each been handed. Waiting for something we both know will never come.

Kenzie gets up to get another garbage bag, and I pull out another stack of photos. Up comes a waft of air, long trapped between the faded ink and frozen smiles. It smells of must and old paper. Perfume of the past. A knife twists. A photo of my 8-yr-old Mom grinning wide as she sits alongside her brother and parents in the very same room I find myself in begins to blur as my eyes fill with tears. I so strongly want to turn back time, so Mom can be that small again. When the only pain she has known is falling off her bike, the only loss she has grieved is of her front tooth, and the only “goodbyes” she has given are temporary.

I push back more tears and wipe my eyes as Kenzie re-enters the room. Her silent presence startles me. The Grandfather Clock perched in the corner of the living room always rattles its chains in disagreement if someone dare take more than a tip-toe across the neighboring room’s faded blue berber carpeting. I look behind me, wondering why the Grandfather Clock hadn’t given me a heads up this time. All that stands in its place is a bin of my Great Aunt’s old yarn skeins and a few empty boxes. The chimes, merely phantom memories, ring loudly in my ears as Kenzie dumps the “Toss” photos into a fresh garbage bag, our parent’s wedding portrait at the top of the heap. 

A different knife twists. 

“I feel weird throwing that.” 

“Mom doesn’t want it,” Kenzie reminds me. “You can keep it if you want to.”

I don’t. I’m nostalgic but not delusional. 

The Furnace continues to keep us company while the rest of the House sleeps or offers a weary sigh as it shifts its weight in an attempt to find a more comfortable position.

“What time are they coming again?,” Kenzie asks. 

“Uhh, 11. So should be here in a few minutes,” I respond as I check my watch. It yells at me to stand. I turn back toward the photos. 

 “Mind taking the lead on this one?,” Kenzie asks. 

“Not at all.”

The House and I let out a simultaneous sigh. 

“Do you know who these people are?” Kenzie offers an old black and white photo of a handsome yet stoic group of people. 

“No idea. It’s not Grandpa’s family.” 

Kenzie moves to discard it. 

“Wait. Don’t throw that. I don’t want to anger anyone,” I say, motioning to whatever Spirits lay in wait, ready to make hell for whoever dare cast their memory aside. 

Kenzie nods. “Good call.” She tosses the photo into the “Ours” pile. 

A soft breeze blows through the open screen door that frames the back wall. A group of kids giggle in the distance. We are surrounded by dusty tchotchkes and worn furniture that someone will eventually buy for their mid-century modern living room. They say style is cyclical. 

If only memory worked that way too. 

A car door closes on the street out front. I stand up, putting the unsorted photos in my hand back into the bin. 

“Here we go,” I mumble.  

“Just remember what Mom said,” Kenzie offers.  

“Yep.” 

I go to the sagging screened-in front porch, a part of the House we never spent much time in. (Largely because we only ever used the backdoor.) I guess it’s fitting that we aren’t doing things the “normal way” for this visit.

“Hello!,” the real estate agent chimes.  

“Hi!,” I attempt jovially, as my voice catches in my throat, some form of protest in welcoming this stranger into the House so we may expose Its soul and scars, all while attempting to conceal our own. 

“Come in. Please watch your step. Obviously the front porch is rough…” I nervously fill the silence while my stomach turns, knowing the man and woman who worked tirelessly for this House cannot defend it from their nursing home rooms. 

My sister introduces herself and apologizes for the mess. 

The real estate agent sympathetically brushes it off. 

“It’s just us today. Mom is with Grandpa and Hospice,” my voice wavers. 

Words spill out of me before tears can.  

“But I can show you around and answer any questions. The main thing Mom wanted relayed was that the House needs to be sold as-is and not contingent upon financing.”

The agent nods and senses the uneasiness. She takes the lead while she pulls out her laser pointer.

“Makes sense. Do you want to show me around or prefer I go alone? Either way works for me. I’ll be taking measurements and might have a few questions but this is mainly to get a sense of the state of the house so I can make the best possible assessment for the listing.” 

I stumble over my words as my brain and heart debate whether I should lead the tour. Eventually I offer to show the agent around. 

Kenzie looks on as if willing me strength to keep it together.  

The agent and I step into the next room with the Furnace, leaving Kenzie to continue sifting through the bins of long-forgotten memories. 

Our feet pad across the thin carpeting, the old House groaning with each step. The familiar black dining room Table sits in the corner as if it’s in timeout and waiting to be allowed visitation rights again. 

“This was always the dining room,” I explain. “The Table was set up here and there was a small Couch along this wall.” I point to a now empty wall. 

I frown slightly as I pause. I wonder where that went? 

The soft creak of the real estate agent shifting her weight brings me back. I turn toward her and notice the Grandfather Clock standing next to the Telephone. Not sure how I missed it before…

The old Phone hangs loyally on the wall, its mile-long-chord slightly kinked from years of being stretched to its limits. The Clock leans tired against the window, a large raised hump in the floor sending it kilter. We take a step closer toward the dormant timepiece. Its aching chains still don’t stir. Its worn out hands long retired from measuring the time. 

I point to a door in the far corner behind the Furnace. A door I never opened in all 25 years of visiting the House. 

“That leads to the basement. We can go down later if you want,” I offer, putting off the visit for a bit longer as if the 3-ft-long centipedes and monsters I heard tales of as a child are still waiting for me. 

The agent nods and follows me as I walk through the doorway of a humble room just to the left of the dining room. I look up as I cross over the threshold, half expecting the countless holiday cards that adorned the wooden frame every Christmas to still be there, offering a “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!,” to all who pass by. A couple pieces of yellowed tape still cling haphazardly to the molding, their reason for existence having been plucked from their grasp many Christmases ago. 

“This was my Grandparents room,” I say, voice catching in my throat. I realize that this is the first time I have stepped foot in this space. I feel as if I am looking in on a small piece of the world that was never meant for my eyes. An accordion door always stood guard, keeping private all that I am now seeing. I look back to the doorway, searching for the noble sentinel. It abandoned its post long ago, when our eyes were no longer around to be shielded. 

I feel like a giant in the tiny room my Grandparents shared for most of their lives.  A small section of shag carpeting looks to be freshly laid, a clear outline of where their full-size bed stood for 53 years. The rest of the room’s flooring is sun-bleached and worn. 

The room is now filled with boxes of my Grandparents’ old clothes and Christmas decorations. I pick up a small deer ornament that hung faithfully on the Christmas tree every year. I turn it over in my hand as the agent takes her final measurements. It’s lighter than I imagined. 

“Huh,” I muse quietly. 

The deer smiles up at me as it did every year. Its slightly disheveled Santa hat narrowly missing its eye.

The agent hangs hesitantly by the door, ready to move on with the tour. 

I set the ornament down and walk towards the doorway. One of my Grandfather’s countless flannel jackets hangs limply from a box by the doorway, its arms outstretched as if asking to feel the warmth of skin again. My hands give it a squeeze as I walk by. 

We walk through the kitchen, all of the appliances now removed like rotten teeth.  Dishes and cooking utensils roost on the folding tables lining the edges of the room, as if recently evicted from the cupboards they lived in for decades. I continue past the cabinets that always smelled of expired spices and something I could never quite place. A heavy, stale, and piquant stench that would rest squarely on your tongue if inhaled too deeply. I would hold my breath before opening the cupboard whenever Grandma needed the chili sauce for the Christmas Eve Lil Smokies. 

I open that same cupboard as I walk by, trying to fill my lungs with the pungent air I deprived them of for so many years. 

I explain where the stove and fridge used to be, peeling linoleum tiles and grease stained walls filling in the blanks where my wavering voice trails off. The old brick-patterned vinyl wall-covering is exposed from beneath several layers of previous kitchen updates. Each layer representing the distinct decades they stood watch over, like some carcinogenic version of etching my height against a doorframe.

The ghost of the massive jar of pickled eggs that sat atop the icebox for years lingers in the upper right corner of the room as I think about the hours I stood next to Grandma at the stove, helping with whatever I could to avoid whichever football game was on in the living room. 

A quiet falls over the space and I hear Kenzie digging through more photos. There is no football on today. There is no stove to stand at. Even if there was, Grandma is wary if I stand too close these days. I would be wary of a stranger too. 

I close the cabinet, its white paint scratched from years of opening and closing on command.  The tinny cathunk of the bent metal latch clamping shut mixes with the plastic crunching of our feet on the dry linoleum floor. 

The agent and I step towards the back mudroom, the only entrance to the House I have ever known. The temperature drops a few degrees as we cross the threshold. The two-inch gap at the bottom of the back door that has grown over the years doesn’t help. As I pass through the kitchen doorway into the mudroom, I glance to the small square of floor next to the sink where the trashcan used to sit. Grandma’s boots have taken its place in the small alcove, their tongues pulled out, still drying from their last trek through the snow several years ago. 

They sit patiently, waiting for my Grandma’s return. They will remain there until either sold or thrown away, but that is a secret I keep to myself. 

“This room isn’t heated, is that correct?,” the agent interrupts.  

“Um, yes. I believe that is correct. The heat is just the furnace you saw and the pipes that run upstairs.”

Why am I nervous? 

This House is tired.

I’m tired. 

I point out where the washer and dryer used to sit. For a flicker I see Grandma helping Mom throw our dirty clothes in the night before we have to leave. My Grandma hands me my coat from the Coat Rack before I step outside to play in the snow.

Grandma fades and in her place is the agent, taking her measurements. Measurements that will fail to represent just how much this House can hold. As I watch our memories be reduced to square-feet and flooring-finishes, I notice Grandpa’s work jacket hanging on the Coat Rack.

It remains where it always has, facing the door, waiting expectantly for Grandpa to return so It may keep his frail bones warm. 

I catch a glimpse of myself in the vanity that hangs at the foot of the steps to the left of me. My eyes are slightly red from the on-and-off waterworks that seem to be pouring out of them these days. I open the door, hoping to find everything in its place as I last remembered. The pack of bandaids seemingly kept on hand just for the grandkids. The antique eye-wash cup I thought was a shot-glass. The wiry bristled brush my Grandma would use to hastily groom her short black hair into place before rushing out the door for her shift at the bakery.

The vanity is empty, except for a few loose hairs and a lost button. 

The agent waits to continue on with the tour. I turn the porcelain handle of the old wooden door that separates the upstairs from the rest of the House and reveal the Exorcist Steps leading to the second floor. The same shag carpeting from downstairs covers the steep stairs. The long wooden cylinder railing that has always clung to the wall guides us upstairs. We each grab ahold and begin our ascent. I hold on a little tighter for this trip. 

“These are some nice sturdy steps,” the agent acknowledges. 

“Yeah,” I nervously laugh as I look down at the treads, long worn at the edges (no doubt from the many years of my sisters and I riding down them). We round to the top of the steps, and I point out the closet just off the end of the landing. 

I slide the slightly bent latch around to open it, half hoping that Mom’s prom dress and our Grandparents’ hunting jackets would still be hanging inside, preserving a time that has long passed. 

“There are some large cracks in here,” I say anxiously, as if this is a test and I am waiting for the agent to laugh at our memories and scars. 

We both look in and see the fracturing of the walls, long tired from holding on to so many secrets. 

The agent kneels down and looks underneath the two layers of old linoleum that line the bottom of the closet, exposing hard wood floors that were there long before I was. 

“Your Grandfather did a good job of taking care of this place. All of this is standard with these older homes.” 

My stomach eases a little, knowing Mom would take comfort in that. 

We close the closet door and I make my way to the bathroom while the agent moves towards the room at the end of the hallway. I check the toilet to make sure it has been flushed, the plumbing having slowed down over the years. I watch as the water sluggishly empties out of the worn bowl.

Before I exit, I open the bathroom vanity and a waft of air hits my face. It smells of Irish Spring soap and Grandma’s hairspray. I inhale deeply, wishing my lungs could hold the air forever, so I may release it whenever I choose to go back in time. So I may not forget. Forget the hours my sisters and I spent in the old claw foot tub playing with Disney water whistles and putting on our bubble beards before bed. Forget when we would spy on the adults during the Christmas party, peering down through the floor vent in the bathroom and scattering the minute we heard someone mention they needed to pee. Forget when I would sneak upstairs to weigh myself in solitude, when I stopped eating Grandma’s Christmas Eve Lil Smokies. 

I close the vanity and catch up with the agent in the back bedroom.

“It’s not uncommon to have to walk through one bedroom to get to the other in these old homes,” she said, as if knowing my family’s uneasiness with the state of the House. 

“Yeah, we would stay in here on the bunkbeds and our parents would sleep in this side room,” I explain. Maybe if the real estate agent can picture our past we can arrive there like some twisted Wizard of Oz.

I seem to have misplaced my ruby slippers though… 

We leave the room, the bunk bed feeling a bit smaller than it used to. I had been here in recent years, but it seems to have shrunken alongside my Grandfather while I have been away. 

The agent peeks her head into the last bedroom. The mattress is covered in more boxes of my Grandparents’ clothes and stacks of old board games we used to play. 

“This was my Uncle’s room,” I explain. Again, not sure why I feel the need to share that information. 

She nods and heads down to the bathroom I just came from. The Lace Curtains that frame the window at the end of the hall catch my eye. The Curtains my sister and I would pretend were our wedding veils when we were five. They look the same, even after so many weddings…

The agent exits the bathroom, blocking my view of the matrimonial lace window-coverings. 

“I can show you the garage if you like,” I offer. 

We go back downstairs, the Steps groaning softly as they support our weight. The muffled sounds of Kenzie still sorting photos fills the silence with the hum of the Furnace. As we open the back door, I look up and see the two Paint-by-Numbers Clown Paintings that have hung at the base of the steps for as long as I can remember. They are the type of paintings you race past as a child, worried they may come to life and pull you into their melancholy world of lead-based face paint and sad balloon animals. They somehow manage to feel a bit more melancholy today, as if they know their shift as Nightwatchmen is rapidly coming to an end after all these years. 

I give them a hesitant nod and step outside, still unconvinced the paintings won’t come to life. The cool breeze and warm sun offer a partial relief from the weight we just left. The bird feeders hang warily from the tree, long empty and vacated. The small paved path leading to the garage dips and weaves its way to the sagging brown shed. A basketball hoop hovers over the peeling siding of the garage, its net long gone. 

The House looks on sadly, Its brown frame with yellow trim looming over what It cannot control. The warped glass of age distorting its vision like tears. 

The sky is so blue. We have that in common today. 

I open the door to the garage, the tired wood scraping the exhausted asphalt. The smell of old wood swells and envelopes us. Bags of my Grandparents’ duck decoys line the walls, a collection that has grown over decades of hunting. Ice fishing poles and antiquated tools long retired are scattered in the far corners of the room. A rusted ladder remains chained to the wall. My Grandfathers’ high school football along with his old softball gloves, lie in a pile at the center of the floor next to an old wooden toboggan. I walk over and pick up the football. 

I squeeze the leather, as if clinging to the discarded cells that remain affixed to its surface will bring the Grandpa I remember back. The Grandpa that wasn’t fading away with each passing day. 

I close my eyes as I inhale deeply. A breeze blows outside. A dog barks in the distance. The soft click click click of wheels turning mixes with an inadvertent tinkle of a bell.

Realizing the agent must be waiting on me, I open my eyes to find that I stand alone in the garage. The wood no longer sags, the cracks in the door seemingly repaired. 

The click click click grows louder. 

A new wooden toboggan hangs on the wall alongside a shiny metal ladder that has been chained to it. 

As I move to leave, the shed door bursts open. Its door swings effortlessly above the ground, wood and asphalt not yet meeting. 

The click click click fills the room as a little girl with short blonde hair runs in and leans her bike against the wall next to a small bag of duck decoys. She runs out, not noticing me. 

I follow her, up the smooth paved path, birds flitting by to get a spot on one of the overflowing bird-feeders. 

The little girl pulls open the back-door, its wood lightly rubbing against the top step as she does so. She barrels past a single clown painting that hangs on the wall, the various 2s and 4s barely visible from underneath the fresh paint. She throws her light jacket onto the coat rack. A man’s jacket already hangs facing the door, as if waiting for her return.

Her mom stands at a mirror by the door, hastily smoothing her thin black hair with a wiry brush as she talks on the phone, its chord barely hanging on from two rooms over. 

The woman lowers the phone from her ear as she yells something inaudible to the girl rushing by. She takes one last look before walking away from the mirror, the phone chord breathing a sigh of relief with each step.

I follow behind, walking through the dining room, past a small couch that sits next to the furnace. 

A grandfather clock rattles its chains from the next room over as it announces each intruder. 

The little girl giggles as she runs into the living room, hops over her brother who is playing marbles on the floor, and jumps onto the couch, where her father lies. Her father jumps up to greet her as her mom enters and takes a seat. 

I stare on as my Mom grins.

The image blurs. All is quiet except for the hum of the Furnace and the distant sounds of photos being sorted.