The Fire

The Fire

2353 words

Reedsy Contest

#98 Origin Stories

She knew she couldn't go back there, but Aiden couldn't help herself, after all it was home, her home. She had spent her childhood there, and several of her teen years, first with her mom and dad, then alone with her mother.

"What is so important about "home" anyways?" She spoke aloud as she wove in and out of the traffic on I-5. Home meant so much more than shelter, or safety, it was tied into her memories of everything warm, safe and loving. It was the best place to grow up, out and away. It is where you learn about life, become a woman, she felt it was everything that was ever important to her.

She moved into the slow lane, deciding to calm down about the whole thing. After all, the service was over now, and the house was legally hers, it should be a happy sort of moment, even with her mom's passing.

About an hour later, the shale in the driveway was crunching under the weight of the car. She almost stopped at the mailbox, but it didn't seem to welcome her. The paint was old and peeling off both her Father's name, and hers. Her mother's name was there, faintly. Ms. Edna George, painted in her mother's calligraphy. She had a strange thought that maybe she shouldn't have come, like she was invading a stranger's privacy. 

She shook that thought off, but her head was quickly filled with more. The driveway, once without potholes, was now filled with ugly gouges half filled with water and mud. Her dad had always kept the driveway graded, and covered with 1 ½ inch shale that created a rough non-slip surface on the steep incline in any weather.

There were cigarette butts and garbage in the long grass along the fence where her horses used to be, and the fence itself was in poor shape, a broken post here, sagging wire everywhere,she suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She rounded a corner and pulled into the parking area.

There was a huge building to her left, it was part barn and part garage. It would hold three tons of hay, tack and the other specifics of equine ownership. There was a large stall for foaling, and four feed stalls similar to those used to feed cattle. Just a small slot with dividers, to keep one horse from displaying dominance and stealing another's food. This was attached to the field by the dilapidated fencing. 

Once, this had been a horse heaven with several apple and pear trees, and three different paddocks for rotation grazing of fresh grass. Now it was overtaken by 20 foot alder trees, and Himalayan blackberry bushes.

The other side of the barn was a huge six stall garage. Her father, Eugene had once owned a heavy equipment business and this is where he kept his tractor, grader, dump truck and backhoe.it was closer to a warehouse than a garage, or shop.

She spent a moment remembering how he had made her a fort in one corner, a small loft with a bed and a tiny fridge and table. Then she thought of the time where she had been playing with a ball and knocked herself out on the anvil he used when he was metalworking.

At that very moment she saw the sheet metal roof had caved in, the tree still laying on the twisted metal and broken walls. The front was intact, but the back of the building was demolished.

She let out a sigh, and continued her assessment from her car. She felt even more nauseous than she had a moment ago, and began to gag. "What the hell has happened here, how could mom let this property get so bad?" 

She retched a couple  times, and quickly sniffed the cologne on her wrist. The lovely smell helped her gather herself a little. Escada was such a fruity tropical scent, it was strong and distracting. She sprayed ten or more squirts on a Kleenex,  and thought about Christmas trees and birthday cakes. 

Looking around the parking area and yard on the south side of the house she shook her head. There was a broken lawn mower, an old couch and about fifteen leaf bags full of probably more garbage. There was crap everywhere, beer cans smashed and lying all over in the unmowed grass in between garbage that was everywhere.

What had happened to her mother? Why had she let this happen to her home? Her head was reeling, her stomach was doing somersaults. Everything she had ever known about this house and her parents was tossed out the window. This was an outrage to her memories, an insult to her presumptions of her mom's condition. 

She took a deep breath and decided to go into the house. She got out of her car and walked back to the trunk, opened it and grabbed her Nikes. She kicked off the heels she had been wearing, and slipped her feet into the best pair of shoes she had ever owned. They fit perfectly, and each step was a dream. The memory foam and springs in the sole made her think "this is what walking on a marshmallow must feel like." Oddly the shoes comforted the uproar loose in her mind and body. The chaos mellowed and she threw her heels in the trunk, closed it, and walked past what used to be a rhododendron garden, up the rotting ramp to the back door, sidestepping a hole  where someone's foot had gone through the rotting two by fours.

She took a deep breath, slid her key into the knob, and opened the door. Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw as she pulled her perfumed Kleenex to her nose. The floor was full of junk piled in boxes. The place was cluttered and filthy. It smelled musty, and she saw patches of black mold on one of the walls.

The mother and father she had grown up with were immaculate in the upkeep of the home and the appearance of the yard and four gardens. It had always been clean and organized,from the barn to her bedroom. Everything was always clean, organized, pressure washed, vacuumed and ironed. Now the rats nest that this property has shattered every one of her memories. 

So her home was exposed, it had always been a lie, a deception. The immaculate exterior always hid the dry rot, drunkenness and abuse that had been her childhood. In her daydreams of home, she had seen this place as a beautiful 3 bedroom home with a beautiful view. The home was painfully embarrassing to her, even in it's perfection. She saw it now for what it had always been. It was a filthy tarpaper shack, in the middle of a garbage dump.

She didn't bother going any further into the house.She walked out to the garage and slid open one of the huge bay doors. Aiden looked around for a moment, and soon realized there was nothing of her memories here either.

She walked back to the trunk of her car and again traded her shoes. The gray wool business suit she was wearing was very expensive, it had a silk lining in the pencil skirt that ended just below her knee, the blazer had been fitted by a tailor, and her accessories, the pearl necklace and amethyst cufflinks looked fantastic against the gray wool.

She said behind the wheel of her car, and drove into the small town where she had grown up.

It was smaller than ever, she thought. It had always been too small for her, she had left at seventeen, and vowed to not return.

The logging industry had failed, and the town had too.

McCleary had been a stagnant racist mecca. It was full of drunken good ol'boys, and their subservient wives, who were beaten weekly for not being enough of anything to be valued. Their tow headed kids went to schools that were centered on the continuance of the importance of their whiteness.

There were two Native American reservations, one on each side of town. The Natives came into town during daylight hours, and stayed out of town after dark. Aiden only knew five or six indigenous graduates. The rest had quit school and slowly fulfilled the prophecy of the white stereotype of their race. Drunk and drug addicted, dead in a ditch.

Aiden pulled into the local hardware store, unchanged since her childhood.She parked her car, adjusted her skirt, and clicked into the store. Her heels sounded like pony hooves on the worn hardwood floor. It smelled like Christmas trees. The lumber was stacked behind the store, but the interior had samples of all the sizes, qualities and finishes of each piece of lumber. She had loved coming here with her Dad.

"Well, hi there, Gene, what can I do for you today?" The old, fat,  bald guy behind the counter would ask, peering over his glasses. Her hand would slip from her dad's, and she would skip off, neighing like a horse, clacking her shoes on the floor.

Today there was a tall man behind the counter. He rang up her purchases, and stared at her quizzically as she paid with one of her cards.

"I read your books, Jo." He ponies quietly.

Aiden hadn't been called Jo since middle school. It was her middle name. She stopped what she was doing and looked hard at the man behind the counter. For a moment she was stumped, and then after seeing his name embroidered on his shirt, she was flooded with memories of time spent with him, she remembered everything, his smell, the taste of his kiss, how his hands looked on his guitar when he played. She almost fainted, becoming extremely dizzy and feeling almost drunk.

"Jo,are you ok?" He asked, his voice was soft, tender, honestly concerned about her condition.

"Yes," she managed, feeling very overwhelmed.

"I'm sorry to hear about your mom…" his voice trailed off, he wasn't sure if she remembered him.

"Thank you Walt." She felt the water filling her eyes, her knees were shaking. She rubbed at her eyes, trying to regain control. Walt was her first love. The last time she had seen him was twenty years ago, in his white coast guard dress clothes.

There was a horrible silence then, as she fumbled with her card and Walt dropped her purchases on the floor.

" You wanna get a drink later?" Walt suddenly said.

She felt like she did the first time she met him, her knees were shaking. He was so handsome.

"I'm doing something at my mom's," she blurted. Do you wanna stop by?"

He was carrying her bag to the car for her, she opened the trunk slowly,her hands were shaking, as was her voice,"Yes you and your wife should stop by."

He shook his head " Not married. Is seven ok?" 

She nodded, and got into her car rolling the window down. "I'll be there, at her house." She smiled and drove off, wondering if he would show. She stopped at a gas station and behind the counter was a friend from high school.

"Hi Jo, how are you?" Another face she didn't recognize. The girl was familiar, but she had met thousands of people since she had lived here. Aiden drew a blank. "Toni, it's me Toni. I'm sorry about your mom." 

Aiden looked at her, slowly she remembered her good friend.Toni was twenty pounds thinner. Wrinkles surrounded her eyes, her neck, even her hands. "Wow." Was all Aiden could say at first, then, "I will call you later, on facebook, ok?" 

"Oh, I bet you're busy with your mom's stuff and all, I'm sorry." She handed Aiden a receipt,"Do call me ok? I miss you."

Aiden nodded, took the receipt put in her gas, and went back to her mother's house.

After Aiden changed her clothes, she grabbed something from her car and walked around the house and barn. She said a little prayer as she walked around, for her Mom, her Dad, and for her memories and finally giving gratitude for how blessed her life had turned out.

She looked at the buildings and laughed as she took one of the gas soaked rags and then another and threw them into the house and garage. Then she lit a piece of newspaper and tossed it into the house, and then lit another and threw it into the barn. Once the buildings had caught, she jumped into her car and drove out to the end of the driveway.She got out and watched as the buildings slowly became consumed by the fire, the flames shooting higher into the sky.

A truck stopped and parked up the street, a handsome man walked towards her and sat on her car next  to her. "Aiden," he started to say something but he saw she was sobbing, he turned her toward him and held her tight. They could hear fire engines coming toward them.

"Aiden sobbed, her shoulders and chest heaving with pain, "It's true," she blurted, '' it's true, you can't go home again, it's all differ t, all wrong." She continued sobbing, murmuring " It's all wrong, you can never go back home. You can't go home again, Walter, you can't come home."

The sirens surrounded them and firemen were running everywhere, hoses lined the driveway like white snakes. The fire was under control, but the buildings had already been destroyed.

"We can't save it Ma'am," a fireman was telling her, " we are just going to have to let it burn. This was your home right? Do you want services? We have councilors".

"This was my mom's property," she said, suddenly standing tall and pushing Walter's arm off her shoulders.

"I have my own home." Aiden said quietly. She stared at the yellow glow that was her childhood home for so many years. " I have my own home."

FIN