What Is a Home?

The gravel road was uneven and bumpy as I drove back home. I’m not even sure I could call it home anymore, I had been away for so long. Would it even be the same? These thoughts raced through my head as I entered rural Missouri I had seen about fifty American flags just in this town. My car pulled to a stop and I got out to look at the house. 

I hadn’t been back in over fifteen years but it and the town were the same. Worn down by time and crumbling. Some might say it was a fixer-upper or it had charm but I knew what it was a disaster. The yellow paint was so dull it could be considered white and the yard was a sea of dandelions. 

I walked in the entrance of the home it still had all of our things in it. It was as though I walked into the past but was now in a big and unfamiliar body. The porcelain figurines my mother had oh so adored decorated the room leading to the stairs. 

The stairs creaked as my weight was added to them. They probably hadn’t been touched in over a month. By the time my mother died, she had been hospitalized for a month and no one came to look over the house.

I walked into the cramped bathroom and looked in the mirror. I had grown considerably since I’d last been here. I now had a beard and a tattoo snaking it’s way up my arm. My mother hadn’t enjoyed that addition to my skin but she couldn’t stop me. It reminded me of when I bleached my hair as a rebellious fifteen-year-old. I’m pretty sure she almost had a heart attack.

I took my walk to my bedroom. The house smelt the same. The smell of my mom’s perfume and stale coffee. I had never noticed it when I lived here but now that I’m back I wish I could capture it in a jar and keep it forever. 

My room was covered in posters of any imaginable band. They played music and I’d like them, my mom never understood that. She like simple music but maybe that’s because she was a simple woman. I walked over to my closet and remembered being so excited to have one when we moved in but that excitement wore off quickly.

When we moved in I didn’t notice things for a while. I mean I was thirteen I wasn’t going to notice that for some reason we had considerably downsized or that mom and dad were fighting more. I cared more about meeting new people to play soccer with. The closet became a safe haven when I became fifteen when everything had gotten out of hand. Hiding in there with the music blasting drowned it all out.

I shook myself out of my melancholy and put a hand on my parent’s door. I was never allowed in there. It’s where dad slept and he didn’t want me getting it dirty. He barely let mom in there if she wasn’t sleeping. I remember waking one night to the screams echoing from the room and just putting my head under the covers. I pushed away from the door. I wasn’t going in there after all this time. Some questions just weren’t made to be answered. 

My mother had loved her kitchen. It was one of the few places my father wasn’t. I remember him coming into the kitchen once. I was coloring at the table while my mother made us sandwiches. We were smiling and joking when my father came in. He was furious he threw a coffee cup at me. He said it was my fault his coffee had gone cold even though I had seen him fall asleep and leave the coffee to go cold. 

At that age, I didn’t think much of it he bought me candy the next day and said he was grumpy yesterday. That was the only time he would ever do that. The next time I stopped getting candy and the objects didn’t always miss me. 

The living room made me go cold. The couch and recliner faced the television. It was small but I remembered my father staring at it for hours. I never was brave enough to see what he was watching. Anytime he was it there I’d be extra careful and walk straight passed it. 

Except for the last night I was home. I was seventeen. I had spent the night out with my friends. We were just screwing around in the park when I had realized I was out past curfew. I hoped and prayed my whole way home that he’d be passed out or better yet sober and happy again. But the fates never seem to feel that kind.

I crept up to the house and tried to steady my breathing. My buddy Jake had offered to let me stay the night with him but I had declined it was best to not make my dad wait. I’m so very thankful for that for if I would have stayed with him I don’t know what would have happened.

I opened the door and sound came pouring out. My dad was screaming at my mom for being a lying bitch or something of the sort. I snuck in and peaked my head into the living room. There they were my mother shaking and cowering next to the television. My dad was screaming his head off and I caught a flash of silver.

I was paralyzed as I figured out what it was. A knife. That monster was waving that object at my mother who had been dealt with one of the worst hands a person could get. She hadn’t ever put her hands on anyone and he was threatening her life. 

She was desperately trying to explain herself but it came out as a mess of tears. He lunged at her and I jumped into action. I pushed him and he fell to the ground. He was smiling a wicked smile and got back up. He had a new target now and it was me. 

I got in a tussle with him and finally got the knife from him. I wasn’t thinking of the consequences of my actions as I plunged the knife into him. All I could think was that we would finally be free. My mom was crying when she finally pulled me off. I saw what I had done and the cut he had given her and I didn’t even feel bad. I don’t know why but without any grief I started to cry.

One of my neighbors had called the police. I guess they could hear the commotion because I had left the front door open. I answered their questions as best as I could and the court ended up ruling that I had done it in self-defense. 

My aunt ended up taking me in after that. My mom was in shock and didn’t know what to do with me. I think she was thankful but I think she also knew I hadn’t felt bad while doing it. My aunt put me in therapy and soon enough I graduated and went on to college.

No one knows for sure what happened that day except for my mom and now she’s gone. I had come to the house to say goodbye. No way was I keeping this home of misery. I spit on the floor and walked out of the house. I flipped it the bird and got into my car.

That day may not have been the day I became a man but I know for sure that after that I was no longer a child. I pulled out of the crummy drive away and drove back to my actual home. The one in Michigan where I had my friends and my dog. The place that was truly my home. Not this hunk of property.