Notice to Evict

The rent she paid didn’t leave for much else at the end of the working week, but it was slowly making her feel safer, further away from the place she once owned. It was still there though, always taunting her, it was all she’d ever known. That number 36 house across the other side of the street, how it had added up to a lot more than she could have ever imagined. 

The daughter of a retired cop lived there now, as with other businesses in that corner of its little cul de sac world, their commercial cleaning provided a clever cover & safe haven for the drugs that had been sold. She was jolted away from that thought, reminding herself that it was not her story to tell. She had experienced the damage of those who were good in their ‘copy and paste’ of her life, removing evidence to omit their guilt. The fancy footwork required to hide any trace of involvement that would point back to them, it had been a rather large ‘cleaning operation’, leaving some stung with a hefty bill and others hiding and lying to her still. 

At house 36, there had lived a number that accounted for many things; reminders of what they had needed to leave behind, the length of time it had taken to try and forget, the work done to repair and rebuild, to start over again. 

She knew that the deep vacancy seen at times in their stare, could tell a story of past injuries almost too great to bear.  It was the type of look that reminded her of the warning signs used on fences for families who owned dogs: it clearly read - BEWARE. She’d been that type of family who had lived over there.

At the time of leaving, It had seemed much easier to just rent space, to not allow the tenancy to fill a permanency she could no longer emotionally or physically afford. The townhouse offered the roof over their head they both had needed, a shelter of respite, a way to ease themselves back into a different way of life. Time, though, had teased out a fondness for their ‘temporary’ digs and they couldn’t or didn’t want to imagine themselves anywhere else today. Those midnight road trips along the highway to the Brisbane Story Bridge, always guessing the colour before its lights came into view. The anticipation of spring that would see the butterflies dance in the little courtyard much to their delight, or the possums that came to visit on cold wintry nights. Books, netflix and study were also part of their weekly routine often followed up on a Sunday with a delivery of ice cream. 

At house 36, she’d had to count too many times the amount of uninvited moments, the addictions and interference of others that had disturbed any chance of peace. Their townhouse now was quiet and uneventful after so much that had not been right.

House 36 had never been a home, it was merely part of the suburb of single storey houses and families struggling with their lot, feelings of being alone. When people become tired of stories about bad things or are juggling the constraints of everyday life; kids, endless bills, a job they hate and the complaints or fights of a husband or wife, she noticed that they tend to dismiss the unspeakable from their mind or become desensitized by seeking out worse things to compare and find.

It leaves a Grave justice that then gets buried by its judgment of too many others, those living inside the same rows of houses, along similar streets, places from which they were all able to establish the one thing she couldn’t - a home. In each building along that street where she had lived in house 36, there were neighbors, most of whom in her 7 years existing there had gone to him unknown. She still sometimes wondered what had turned him into that type of demolition man whose only desire was to teardown and destroy. 

No, the house at 36 was definitely not a home, had never been a home, no matter how hard she and the children had tried, they had not felt safe there even with the neighbors or their dog. There had been no sense of belonging and any memories had been fractured by the culminating events over a long period of time. 

Instead it had taken this new number on the opposite side of the street to make her feel protected, to be given back a ‘new lease on life’, how over many months and years it had come to form a refuge, to find a place to belong. It was this unit in the space they now shared today that had finally begun to feel like something good. There was a connection here, to each other, to the place, a work in progress of their personal reconstruction, the warmth & support of friends and family who had carried them along. Everything at Unit 8 had been engineered with love. 

The house on 36 was a reminder that the feeling of home can never be bought, for a home reflects who we choose to live our lives with, to share our intimate moments with, the ones we value and nurture along the way. It is the relationship we have with the people in it, the strength of the foundation to create a new and warm abode, it was one she could only hope the real estate agent would see should not be taken away, especially from the community to which it belonged. 

That house on 36, was just a distant reminder for them that only the physical constructs of any man made structure have the possibility of being fixed, no other handywork, no matter the level of skill could mend the really bad stuff. God only knows how hard they’d tried.

She had chosen to ignore the rumors, not wanting to believe the signs. As she stared down again into the letter held within her hands, trying to make sense of what her mind did not want to understand. She was reminded of how all it took was a man to demolish all sense of hope, the lost count of how many times they’d had to start again. She checked the address on the envelope confirming that it had reached the right Apartment, hers at number 8. She would be damned if she was going to let anyone else dismantle their reason for living. She’d already known what it was like to be deconstructed, pulled apart, it was the very price they’d paid to salvage what was left of themselves from before.

Houses she had come to learn were a lot like people in that they hold their storeys inside, how it is the choice of materials that determine the strength of the foundation to bring in good supplies. She’d been quietly busy since her leave from the House at number 36.

Piece by piece, she had worked hard to bring that house down, demolishing the myths, realizing that each day she’d spent there had been like living on a notice to evict