Old House

A tribute to abandoned houses, their stories, and to their beauty.

The gravel shifts beneath me with each weighted step. I know this rugged, windy road better than my the back of my hands. I've walked it a million times, season after season.

So many memories ghost this road. I can hear my children running after each other. Her brown hair blowing in soft autumnal wind. Him running for me with chubby arms held open, "Mama." His knee scratched and bleeding.

What I would do to hold my son again.
The memory uncoils its cold, slithering self from me, leaving my fragile lungs breathless. Aching.

These shoes are old, and are loose around my small, wrinkled feet. I move with small, hobbling steps. These old bones don't move gracefully any longer.

In my beautiful years I had been able to run in this road. I ran for so many reasons - some happy, some for the saddest of my life. Once when Mama had died. Another time was to welcome my brother James home from war.

I still as my wavering vision settles on it. The old house where I have lived. Abandoned. Sitting on a hill in the evening, surrounded by beautiful burning colors of autumn. Wrapped in vines and aged, with long grass swaying around it. The white paint faded to gray...chipping away. Still beautiful in her ruins.

My feet move toward it with a hurriedness I didn't know I posessed. The hurriedness of a young girl ready to be home.

The hill takes me a while and the sharp dead grass is assaulting against my thin skin, but when I reach the porch I catch my breath and stare off toward the mountains. An array of color, as if set on fire by the sunset. So many evenings I rocked in my old chair staring off at them, in wonder. Rocking babies, rocking heartache, rocking memories...

Home.

Shaking, I twist the knob and push the door open. It cries from the movement. I think it is crying because I, the last of us who it has protected and watched grow out of seven children, have finally come back.

Wrinkled flesh before me strickens me. Caught up in all of my memories...I forgot that I wasn't young and beautiful, with unblotched skin.

As I rub the door, soaking up all the hands who have pushed and pulled and knocked, bits of dried paint crumbles. I pull my hand away.

"Are you crying, Old House?"
It is.
"Hush now. I am home."
Everything is as I left it. I can't help but let a gasp escape in wonder as I am suddenly surrounded by the smell of fresh bread and apple pie, mama singing in the kitchen, daddy listening to the radio with a cigar between his full mouth, my baby brother playing with his toys, and one of my sisters laughing. Oh, it is more than I can bear.

Then I hear the sound of Charles, my husband, calling my name.

"Charles?"
I hobble up old oak steps and down the hall, opening the door of what had been our bedroom.

"Charles?" The room is still. Our bed made, the nightstands on each side sporting books and lamps. His watch and glasses still rest on it. Vines have tore their way through the window, greedy fingers spreading to the wall.

His brown hat hang on the closet door, as do his belts. My dresser which had been my sweet mama's holds my old clothes, bottles of stale perfume, and mirrors.

I take up a mirror that is stained from dust.
"I am an old woman now, Old House."
The wood that is her brittle bones groans. I smile.
"Oh, hush. You are, too. We're not spring chickens anymore."
It groans again, in agreement, I believe.
I know this house is alive. It once breathed and ate as trees, and then it housed my family, listening to our heartbeats as we slept, watching us laugh and cry. Oh, the secrets it holds dear and silent. Especially mine. I laugh at all it knows. The things my parents never found out.
"You saw me sin and be a saint, Old House. You heard me lie, but you also heard me repent. You...are my only friend now."
Nobody else knows me like this old house.
Aimlessly I wonder around picking up old things, admiring them. I open the closet to find clothes hanging. My hands instinctively reach for Charles' suit. It grasp it, holding it against me so tight. The faint scent of him somehow still lingers on it and I sob into the collar, as if his neck is right there.
He wasn't able to watch me become an old woman. I didn't watch him age beyond fifty-four.
He was and still is the love of my life. Many nights we had lay awake talking in here. Here I had given birth to our daughter. We awoke to the phone ringing at three A.M to the news that our boy had been killed. In this room we told our deepest fears and secrets. Oh, the bittersweet scent of this room.

There are trails from mice and creatures who have found refuge in this old house. An owl hoots from one end, a bird chirps from the other. I heard a shuffling beneath these old planked floors.

The house groans again, whining for me to talk to it. My words stick to my dry mouth, paralyzed.
I steady myself, pulling Charles' suit from the closet. My stiff legs shuffle as I move toward the bed and lay it down on his side. He was a handsome man with a good heart. Though he was never a man of many words...there were times he said the loveliest things to me, when we were alone.

I go to the other side and pull down the quilt, moving so that I slide beneath the dusty fabric with ease.

I feel them in this old forgotten house. I feel Charles and his warmth.I feel my boy and his teasing jokes. I feel mama and daddy dancing in the kitchen as supper cooks. I feel my siblings running around, playing in the safety of our home.

My daughter will wonder where I am. She doesn't understand that it is my time to go. I made peace with her and the grandchildren without them even knowing. I'm tired of being looked after like a child, with rough hands cramming pills into mine, and the way people look at me as an object because I am old. One hundred and two years old, to be exact. I lived a good life, and I planted my seeds, and I sowed laughter and tears. I am content with what has been and I let go of what was not.

I close my eyes and the house groans. It knows why I am here.
"Don't cry for me, Old House. I came to my true home...You're the last places I wanted to see."
She creaks and whines. Perhaps it is the wind or the cold bothering the wood, perhaps this old house is sorrowful to see me go.

"We're very old, you know. We have lived good lives."
I feel it now.
The strange sensation of sleep and darkness and light. The afterwarmth of it all.
I can feel the heartbeat of this house and I listen to it as mine withers slowly.
I awoke today knowing it was my last, and stole away and walked miles to get here.
"Thank you...for being my home."
Suddenly I hear voices in this old house. I hear my mama and daddy talking, little children running, and I hear my boy saying, "She is here."
The feel of a hand I know so well caressing my cheek.
"Welcome home, love."
My eyes open. I am home, in this old house, surrounded by the ones I love. Charles smiles and hold out his young, flawless hand for mine.

Reviews

[hdc]

Great story, you hit on everything that makes a house a home. I moved around a lot as A kid, so I don't really have that one place to call home, but the memories and thoughts of my family together came back as read this. Things I haven't thought about in years. well done:)

[Jessi]

Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

[Ashley Renegade]

Wow! This was so beautiful! I admire your skill!

[Jessi]

I have edited a bit...would you please read it again now and see if it has helped. I've more to do.

[Samuel Dickens]

This is a wonderful story, told with tenderness and respect. I, too, see old houses as much more than wood and stone, and consider them to be alive in certain ways. They can become part of us, so it stands to reason that we could become part of them. As Nigel pointed out, it could benefit from a good edit.

[Nigel Newman]

Gosh Jess. What a beautifully told story. May I suggest you do an edit for things like plurals when you mean singular or vice verce, and the odd word that you probably think is as you wrote it but actually isn't (better than the back of my hand ...).

Other than that, my only two suggestions or more like possibilities are
- the house is still in a beautiful setting, whereas of course many such locations would have now been developed, and many such houses are now surrounded by what Pete Seeger called 'little boxes'; c'est la vie, I guess, but it might offer you an opportunity to have the house also become reborn as the new houses could fade to be replaced by the trees and mountain views of old, etc
- the passage where the old lady says it's her time to go; small thing but I think you could just leave that as 'my time'

Other than those 2 points, I really really enjoyed this. The pictures are great, the relationship with the house, the mutual memories, the little cameos of family members. And all told in a soft sepia warmth that leads the reader to the conclusion almost before the words themselves.

Really nice job!

Regards
Nigel

[Jessi]

Thank you, Nigel! Very kind of you to say. Appreciate your advise.

[Levi Levin]

Excellent story! It was very interesting, especially the second half of it. It's definitely quality for a short story contest.

[Jessi]

Thank you!