The House That Built Me

It’s a brisk October day, the air smells of decaying leaves and wet dirt from a recent rain, and I am standing in front of the house I nearly grew up in. 

It’s nothing special, a one story bungalow with green siding and off white stucco, a big enough porch and a small one car garage on a compacted street. Most people wouldn’t look twice at this house, that is proven by the for sale sign that has lived in the yard for over six months.

I’ve gained access to the home from a rather bubbly realtor, who is most likely eager to get the property off their hands.

What makes me visit here? After all these years? Maybe because it just came on the market three weeks ago, after years of staying vacant. I drove by the house many times, feeling pulled towards it.

There was also a sense of needing to stay away, as if I didn't belong there. As if I was lucky to have missed out on being raised there.

I come to the oak front door, butterflies tumble over each other in my stomach, I am unsure if I should enter the threshold or not. If I should enter the past after all these years.

No one has inhabited the home for those past 25 years, and it shows in the sad decay of the house.

Everything is different, but the same somehow. No one has painted in the 25 years since I have left, the same pale yellow that seems so strange now but as a child I never thought twice about it.

There is random furniture sprawled around the house, a chair here or a table there. I feel a heavy weight on me, as if I shouldn’t be here, but this was almost home. This is the last place I saw my mother, and would become the place of her death, or what I assumed to be the place of her death.

I couldn’t tell you how her death came about, just that it was sudden. One day she was here and another she was not, I was only ten at the time of her demise. I woke up to my grandmother carrying me from my bed and outside of the house. I never returned after that.

I always tried to ask my grandmother what happened to my mother, but she would never tell. In all honesty I am not even sure that my mother died that day, but that is what I have thought all this time. What other explanation could there be? For my grandmother to whisk me away from the woman who bore me. 

Sometimes I wonder if there wasn’t a reason for my grandmother to take me, was she spiteful? Surely she could not have walked in and taken me without any consequences. 

My grandmother never told me why she took me, I would beg and plead for answers. Once I was fifteen she sat me down and told me "You will never know what happened that day, and consider yourself lucky". Despite my grandmother's warnings, I pressed on and decided to visit once I saw the for sale sign in the yard.

I came here for answers, but I know I won’t find any. My removal from the house that built me has remained a mystery for me.

Green cabinets, ancient black appliances, and floral wallpaper line the kitchen. I remember my mother cooking spaghetti so frequently that I can’t even stomach it as an adult. 

There’s a single light hanging in the kitchen in the center of the room, a fan for some odd reason, this house had many strange things about it.

Upon turning on the light, I inspect every corner of the room, something draws me here that I can’t explain. As if my mother is calling me from the grave to investigate, to find the truth about what happened that night.

My eyes rest on a seam in the wooden floor, about one foot by two feet, what a peculiar thing, I had never recalled this being here. 

“Open it” my inner voice beckons, and I listen to it. Inside there is a medium size wooden box with a brass latch. 

Anticipation makes my hands sweat and my stomach ache, I feel as if I shouldn’t open this box, I’m afraid of finally finding the truth.

What feels like hours pass before I can open the mystery box, before I can muster the courage to do so.

What I find is not what I was expecting, but what is a normal thing to expect from a hidden box under the floor? Certainly not multiple passports, cash from different countries, and a file on yourself, naming you. 

A million questions pass through my head, where did this box come from? Who put it here? Why are there passports with my mother’s face on them? Why am I named in a file? 

My file names me, my birthday, has a picture of me from when I was five, but none of it in English, all in Russian. It is unreadable to me, there are dates and numbers, and my mother’s name multiple times. 

Was my mother the one who received this file? From Russia? What happened to whoever made this file? If there was a file like this one me, why hasn’t my grandmother told me? Did she even know?

There are footsteps behind me, the old wooden floor creaking under their weight. How could I not have heard someone behind me? I turn to see none other than my mother, older, more gray, but still herself after all these years.

“Mom?” the words barely find their way through my lips, why is she just here after all these years? Where has she been?

“Hello sunshine, there is much we have to talk about.” her mouth curls in a warm smile, and I can’t help but rush to her, and we embrace.

While we are interlocked I hear something peculiar, something that I am unsure if I actually heard or not.

The faint sound of a gun cocking, ready to be shot.