Coming Back

Everything was the same. Or, maybe, everything was different. I was so overcome, by emotion and by memories, that the earth could have swallowed me whole and I wouldn't have noticed. The pit in my stomach widened and I swallowed, my dry throat choking me into a cough. 

I glanced over at my wife, our youngest baby snuggled into her hip. She gave me a knowing look. She couldn't know. She didn't know. 

I closed the creaky door of the truck and strode towards the house. In my father's dying days, the upkeep of the house had been left to nature. The deck, once a spectacle, was now covered in mold and the wood was rotting. 

Our oldest, Lewis, was standing at the foot of the steps leading up to the deck. His forehead was creased as he hesitated. Lewis was little older than I had been when I was last here. His brother, Ryan, our middle child, was already at the front door, jiggling the locked door handle. Ryan had always reminded me of Joey. Sometimes I thought he might be Joey reincarnated. 

I didn't scold him to move out of the way, just let him jiggle it a few more times, a grin spread across his face. He wasn't much older than what Joey had been either. 

With trembling hands, I withdrew the key that the solicitor had given me from my pocket, and placed it in the lock. Stepping across the threshold sent a chill down my spine. I felt myself turn green. 

The entryway was just as it had been all those years ago, bright white and shining, scrubbed clean by my mother's hand. The staircase rose up to the rooms beyond. I could have stared at them forever, lost in the memories of the house, but my gaze was drawn to the small figure stood at the base of them. 

He grinned wider as he saw me see him. He stood, not a hair out of place, the exact image as he had been that day. Even the scuff marks on his boots were the same. He grinned wider still. 

"Want to come play, Lockie?" He pointed to his right, through the kitchen window, towards the swing on the old tree outside. I'd felt that swing in my chest as I cut the engine to the truck, moving in the breeze as it always did, even if I couldn't see it. I sucked in a breath.

Then the entire scene melted away, dissolving into the crumbling ruins of my childhood home. I felt my wife's hand on my back, rubbing at my shoulders. 

"We should let the boys go and play." 

I nodded stiffly, then turned to the left and entered the living room. It was as it had been left, except my father's chair was broken and crumbling, the cushion curved from where he had sat in it. 

My wife sat the baby on a clean patch of floor and began gathering family photos from the mantelpiece. 

I turned to my mother's chair. My mother's chair was in good repair and looked as though it had been recently steam cleaned. She had been the love of my father's life, I was sure. There was no indication that he had moved on or remarried at the reading of his Will. He had left her a few items in his Will, including the chair.

I lifted it up and hauled it out to the truck. It wasn't heavy. The wood frame was all really. But as I placed it into the back of the truck, I turned away towards the edge of the house where the swing had been. 

I was overwhelmed by the one memory I did not want, then. The memory of my last day here. 

"Want to come play, Lockie?" 

"No, Joey. Leave me alone." 

"Go and play with your brother, you clown," This was my father, he slapped his hand down against the table. When I still hesitated, he stood quickly to his feet, the chair hitting the ground behind him. I scrambled to my feet and scurried out the door behind Joey, who had a grin on his face. 

"Fine," I muttered. "But it's my turn on the swing first." 

"No," Joey grinned some more. "It's my turn." 

"I'm the oldest." 

"But I'm the favourite," he said, grinning again. I don't know if that's what he had really said, but it had sounded like it at the time and over the years, that's what it had come to be in my mind. 

The memory continued unfurling, hurtling towards the inevitable. I was sucked in, as if I was doing everything all over again. 

I slouched down to the swing. Joey got on first and I pushed him as high as he would go. He kept shouting at me to go higher. I kept pushing him higher, my mood souring. I pushed him higher and higher, harder and harder. 

Until Joey was screaming because the swing was spinning to the side instead of going straight. His hand came loose but I pushed him again and…

I heard a piercing scream slice through the quiet and I started running instantly. I rounded the corner of the house and saw Joey on the ground. I ran, scooped him up, held him to my chest. 

It took me a moment to realise that he was Ryan and he was crying and Lewis was shouting. My wife was yelling too. I couldn't make sense of it. 

I jogged Ryan to the truck and begged everybody to get in, we're taking him to the hospital. My wife strapped the baby in. Ryan was still crying, holding his head. 

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," it was me, I realised. Over and over again. I made myself stop. Everyone was in, I started to drive. 

Only then did I hear what my wife was saying. "I thought you said your dad took the swing down."

Yes, I had seen him take the swing down. I'd seen him throw it into the house and the board skitter across the ground, landing against the banister of the stairs and shattering to pieces. But I could imagine the man rebuilding it, putting it back together whilst old and decrepit and stringing it up again for me to find. 

"Where are we going, Lockie?" 

"Hospital, and as far away from here as possible." 

I winced. I remembered my mother saying something similar. She had wanted to protect me from my father's anger. She had wanted to get away from her raging husband and her other son. 

Then I could hear my son. "Joey made me do it." This time his voice was smaller. I nearly stopped the truck. 

"What?"

"Joey, the boy in the house. He made me do it." 

I frowned, swallowing hard. I could feel my wife's horrified expression on me. "What did Joey look like, Lewis?"

Lewis paused for a moment. "He looks like Ryan." 

I slammed on the brakes. The car came to a stop and we all swung forward. Ryan cried out. The baby began screaming. 

But I looked in the rear view mirror, back at the house. We hadn't made it too far and the driveway was wickedly straight. 

I could see him, waving to me, and falling over himself laughing. He slapped his hands on his knees, clutching his sides. 

"Honey?" 

I pressed down slowly on the accelerator, my eyes stinging with unshed tears. 

"I'm never coming back."