Living Memory

The hammering I’d heard earlier wasn’t some overzealous couple, hellbent on a renovation that would inevitably turn into a demolition of this decrepit house at the end of the street, as I’d hoped.

I cross my arms as I assess the new addition to the front window of the highly rumored haunted house.

“A new piece of crappy wood covering the perpetually shattered window,” I compliment the dilapidated pile of sticks, “those teenagers will never get in now!”

My sardonic smile fades as I turn to assess the gaping screen door where it hangs off its ancient hinges. An eerie maw to an insatiable beast, the darkness beyond seems to call to me, as it does every local as soon as they hit their teens.

I consider the decades I’ve waited the pinnacle of self restraint, really.

“Just a peek,” I concede to the worn Victorian manor.

I’m convinced every scary movie was produced by those who witnessed this monument to mold and decided to enter it anyway.

A three story chipped emerald painted ode to olden architecture: it has a large wrap around porch, remains of bay windows on either side, an overhanging second story, five double windows with dancing tattered curtains, and a top floor angled to a point that eases into the remaining roof.

“I don’t know what they see in you,” I say, even as my foot makes the first porch step cry out, admittedly beginning to sense why it seems like anyone who passes by, just can’t stay away.

I’ve always fought the compulsion, considering myself better than those who so easily caved to curiousity.

“Just a peek,” I repeat, but mostly to soothe myself and the rising sense of unease.

The breeze seems to agree with the futility of my insistence, teasing the fine hairs on my nape that rise the moment I cross the threshold. It presses against me on all sides, as if it could make me do its bidding.

My eyes rise to the poorly patched hole in the tall ceiling.

“Just displaced air pressure,” I announce unconvincingly to no one.

The next step inside reveals a rickety wooden staircase to the right of the expansive foyer. The miscolored stain indicates a runner having existed down the middle of them at one point.

‘A red one would look nice,’ I think.

Regardless, it was probably stolen or worn away by time.

The wall there shares similar inconsistencies, square and rectangle shaped blemishes showcasing the ghosts of innumerable photos that had hung on the wall.

This was someone’s life.

There was love here.

The thoughts have me rubbing my chest to will away the ache.

I keep turning. Through the archway to the right, I find a large room lined with empty bookcases, littered with trash, and a large hearth long since gone cold.

Despite its current lackluster appearance, I can almost see it in its original glory now.

Room aglow with warmth, the firelight dances on the spines of bound books and kisses the smiling faces of a family lazing in silent contentment.

The husband sprawls back on the couch, that I vaguely recall currently having springs jutting out. One hand holding an open book, the other lovingly caresses his wife’s back.

She lies with her cheek on his chest, her own book in hand.

Her content grin rests on his ribs while he soothes her with metronomic strokes across the fabric of her beautiful ruby red dress, the long full skirt pooling onto the floor.

The children, a young blond boy and a younger brunette girl, sprawl on cushions before the fireplace. Both have their own open books, turning pages without really reading them.

They're acting like angels, yet incrementally kicking each other with barely restrained mischievous smiles, both instigating a fight they’ll claim to be the victim of when caught.

I suck in a breath as I return to reality as if my submersion in a made up memory had me on the verge of drowning.

I’ve only just entered the threshold.

The mold in here must be more potent than I thought.

“That was beautiful though,” I praise the spores.

A door in the left wall of that room creaks.

I’m so glad I don’t have to go to the bathroom, or else I’d be going right on this floor.

I’d feel worse for further desecrating the house than my clothes at this point, which makes me unsure if I'm more mad at myself or the mold for forcing me to see the appeal here.

No additional sound follows other than the erratic static in my ears.

“Just the wind,” I breathe into the thickening air, my feet following the source of the noise with the poor instinct of prey.

Through the creaking, swinging door, I find the remains of a kitchen. I don’t even have the time to assess its decrepitude before the pretty picture of the past unfolds.

All four family members are happily laughing and chattering around an equally sided table with rounded edges, a platter of ravaged messy spaghetti as the centerpiece.

The fridge straight ahead is littered with a garden of flower finger paintings. A tiled wall behind the stove is similarly painted with sauce, indicating the children had helpfully assisted with dinner as well.

The husband watches on with unmistakable fondness while wife and children chatter together as though speaking their own language, animatedly dictating each point with a swish of a breadstick like furious orchestra conductors.

Unable to help myself, I huff a laugh.

The husband whips his attention to where I stand, framed in the doorway, face flashing in surprise.

As if he can see me.

As if this is real.

I choke on my gasp and reemerge back in the ruins of what was. Shaky hand rising to my throat as I stare at the empty and broken chairs, an internal war waging on whether to leave this place or press on.

Whether it be my own feet betraying me or the breeze, I can’t be sure, but I find myself being carried up the creaking stairs, not under my own volition.

“I’m sure this is going to end well,” I tease tightly.

I ascend the landing adorned with creative graffiti curse words that I’d never previously considered combining, the ornate hallway above becoming larger and wider the more I involuntarily surmount the incline.

Unless someone has decided to renovate this hovel from the top down, I’m sure this hallway isn’t actually here, but that doesn’t stop me from admiring it.

Sapphire wallpaper with repeated gold filigree fills the top half of the walls, the bottom half decorated with dark wood paneling that matches the opulent flooring placed in a herringbone pattern.

The kids barrel out of a doorway I hadn’t noticed, pushing and shoving down the hall with laughter. I distantly note that their outfits are the same as in my reading daydream.

They come up short at, yes, the sight of me.

Little feet carry them quickly in my direction before I can brace myself against this hallucination.

“Mother!” They cry out excitedly, wrapping my waist with their tiny arms.

In a panicked attempt to appease the apparitions that I can actually feel, I bend down to hug them back, startling to find my arms enveloped in an elegant ruby red fabric.

They sense me stiffen and graciously pull back.

“Father said you weren’t ready yet,” the little girl huffs.

'Beth,' some distant intuition informs me of her name.

The little boy drops his chin to his chest as he angrily shoves his hands in his khaki pants pockets, scuffing his shiny black shoes against the red carpet lining the stairs at our feet.

'Jeremy,' that same inner voice supplies.

My hand is threading through his shaggy blond hair to push it out of his face before I can think better of it. He looks up at me with the movement as if I just performed a miracle.

The father appears from out of nowhere, popping into existence just behind the boy.

Baron, the voice says once more, and I suddenly wish I could will it away.

Because along with that final name comes a flood of memories.

My memories.

Baron watches with increasing hope as I feel my face contort with each additional moment coalescing in my mind.

All the years of joy, happiness, hardship, and becoming infinitely rich in love, culminates to a confirmation that all I’m seeing is actually real.

It’s that very last memory, there by the fire, that has the rich color of the hallway flickering grey.

“Don’t make yourself forget again,” my husband pleads, “Stay with us.”

He wouldn't be asking that if he knew how painful it is to stay, now that I know.

It would be so much easier to forget.

Just walk right out of here and pretend I hadn't learned the painful truth.

But then Beth grabs my right hand, Jeremy, my left.

Pleading gazes pin me in place and bolster my resolve.

For them, I fight the urge with all I have.

The sconces incrementally adorning the walls flare brighter with my effort.

I can do it. I know, I can.

I can finally accept that this decrepit monolith, straining to retain its form, was our home.

Right up until the end.

That unshakable knowing supplies that this place has been calling upon lost souls ever since, in the desperate attempts of the occupants to locate mine.

I feel myself shaking my head, not in protest, but wonder.

All these years, my family has waited for my wandering spirit, writhing in denial, to reenter the place where we lived and died together that fateful night, all of us unaware of the carbon monoxide coaxing us comfortably to sleep by the hearth.

The hallway flickers again.

“We should’ve lived,” I tearfully insist to my family, “We should’ve awoken. We should’ve known.”

Baron’s hand cups my cheek lovingly, earnest eyes confirming that even before we met, he was waiting for me.

My fight deflates.

The surrounding space solidifies at my acceptance, illuminating until blindingly bright.

There’s a breeze at our backs.

The muffled groan of a building amidst collapse.

Together again, in the white light, my family and I finally make our way home.