The Yellow House

The Yellow House

     After the dust had settled and the Yellow House was razed to the ground, we all blamed each other.

    “You lived the closest!” scolded Minette Simpson in an accusatory tone, as if I alone was responsible simply because of proximity.  Minette’s home was the furthest away and therefore, according to her, she was exempt from all blame.

    There was no point arguing with the outspoken Minette. With her teased hair and excessive make-up, she looked like an ageing Vegas showgirl. She was also the unofficial spokesperson of Larkspur Lane, and we all gave her way more power than she deserved.

    My husband Tim and I moved into 660 Larkspur Lane after stumbling upon the picturesque street by accident one day. Tim had insisted that we take a drive, that I needed my fresh air. Our GPS had taken us on a wild goose chase and suddenly we were on a narrow winding road that cut through of one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Larkspur Lane was a stunning street, like something out of the movies:  huge trees with intertwining branches that cast dappled shadows on the pavement and dozens of kids playing outside. We were both so taken with the lovely neighborhood that when an older split level went up for sale, we were quick to put in an offer.

    Ten years ago on the day we moved in, a little girl appeared on the sidewalk and stood watching us. I learned later she was Minette’s granddaughter, Tessa.

“Don’t talk to that man,” she said. “He’s bad.”

For one startling moment I thought she was referring to my husband, but then I saw she was looking towards the Yellow House. “Who’s bad, sweetie?” I asked her. She was an adorable little thing: big blue eyes with a smattering of freckles across her chubby cheeks.

The little girl looked at me with solemn eyes and without comment, ran off to join her friends.

    Years later when I tried to ask Tessa what she meant by that, she insisted she had no memory of the conversation. By then she’d turned into a sulky teenager and seemed to view all adults as enemies, preferring to converse only with her pack of goth girlfriends.

    We put a lot of work into our home. Tim painted the house forest green and white, and we added a porch which we adorned with comfortable rocking chairs and hanging baskets filled with petunias and ivy, my favorites. It was a lovely place to sit on a warm evening. I don’t go out much, and I looked forward to these moments. We didn’t have children, and we were content to bask in each other’s company, just doing all the things that couples do.

    To keep me happy, Tim created my own area down in the basement. A place where I could reflect, a place that was filled with my favorite things. Of course there were some things that he could have improved on, but I’m never one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

    The Yellow House, as we all referred to it as if it were so important it deserved to be capitalized, was at the end of the lane, separated from our house by two overgrown lots. I never liked that color of yellow, it was much too bright of a hue for a house, but it had lovely curb appeal with its meticulously maintained front yard and well-tended flower beds.  The only thing that made it creepy was the house number: 666.

“The number of the beast,” I pointed out to Tim immediately after we moved in. He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind and accused me of reading too much Stephen King.

“You’ve seen the owner,” he pointed out. “He’s hardly the picture of Satan, is he?  A strong wind could blow him over.”

This was true. I’d only seen the man from far away, but he was frighteningly thin. Minette Simpson was convinced he was a pedophile; she’d seen him giving what she thought were inappropriate looks to Tessa and her teenage friends. Another one of the neighbors thought the man might be in a witness protection program because he was so reclusive. I suggested that maybe he had cancer. We all had our theories, eventually settling on “eccentric loner”.

“Why don’t we invite him over for a drink?” asked Tim one day as we sat on the porch with ice-cold bottles of beer. “I’m sure he’s lonely.”

    We’d never seen any other visitors to the house. In the daytime, the man spent endless hours tinkering in his garage or tending to his yard. In the evenings he appeared to stay inside, but we never really knew for sure.  There were no lights glowing from behind the heavily draped windows except for a sliver of a light coming through one of the basement windows.

“Lonely or a loner?” I asked. “There’s a difference.”

Tim gave me a long look and I thought maybe I’d pushed him too far. He stood up. “I’m going over.”

    I watched as he made his way to the Yellow House and knocked on the front door. If anyone can make a friend it’s Tim, with his charming Irish accent and natural charisma. I saw him glance back at me and I gave him a reassuring wave. He’s always so concerned about my well-being.

After a few minutes of useless knocking, Tim returned to our porch.

“I’m not sure if he heard me,” he said. “Sounded like he was doing renovations or something. I could hear an electric saw.”

    It was hot that evening, so we stayed out on the porch and watched the comings and goings of the street. A few people were mowing their lawns and many of the kids were riding their bikes or playing hopscotch.  It was like any other evening on Larkspur Lane.

 Thirty minutes later the man came out of the Yellow House with an armful of wood. He opened his garage door and disappeared inside. When he came back out, he walked in the direction of our house and didn’t stop until he was standing beside our porch.

“Hello there,” said Tim awkwardly. I just stared. With hollowed cheeks that bore the scars of acne and circles under his eyes so dark that from far away he looked as though he had had empty eye sockets, the guy was creepy as all get-out.

“Name’s Victor,” he said, holding out his hand. I noticed his fingers were stained quite badly with nicotine.

Tim rose quickly and shook Victor’s hand.  “Nice to meet you. This is my wife—”

“You needin’ something?” he asked. “Noticed you’d been over earlier. Saw you through the window.”

“Well. We just thought you might enjoy a cold beer and a chat with neighbors on such a hot evening,” Tim said.

Victor nodded. “I don’t drink,” he said. “And I don’t socialize much.”

    I noticed Victor would only look at Tim when he spoke. He never once glanced my way.

A woman-hater, I thought. I can spot them a mile away.

    Tim seemed oblivious to Victor’s coolness and kept attempting to engage him in small talk. Across the street I could see some of the neighbors casting curious looks our way and knew it wouldn’t be long before Minette Simpson hauled her bulk over to get the gossip.

Victor was polite but reserved. He seemed anxious, like he wanted to leave. After only a few moments, he did.

“Well, that was uncomfortable,” Tim said when Victor was gone. “You were right, a loner.”

    The following Saturday we were invited to the Simpsons with a few other neighbors for cards and drinks. Everybody wanted the scoop on Victor.

“There’s nothing much to report,” I said as I dealt cards for gin rummy. “He’s a nutjob but that’s about it.”

“What’s wrong with your wrists?” asked Minette, changing the subject. “Did you burn yourself?”

I glanced down at the reddened area on both wrists. It had been a bad day, but I wasn’t about to tell her about it.

“Oh nothing,” I said as I scanned my cards. “Just me, being clumsy.”

And then it was back to gossiping about Victor again.  He’d been our neighbor for years now and still none of us knew anything about him. In the winter, he was always the first one out shovelling snow off his driveway. In the summer, he’d fill his yard with flowers and shrubs to match the beauty of the other homes. On Sundays he’d get in his car, a big old thing from the seventies, and come back with bags of groceries. We couldn’t understand how a man that skinny could eat so much and not gain weight. And there was always the sound of a hammer and saw coming from inside the garage. Tim thought maybe Victor was a carpenter, the kids of the street thought he was cutting up bodies. Occasionally we’d hear music coming out of the garage, old-style country like Johnny Cash and Conway Twitty. He was a mystery alright.

    None of us suspected a thing. Not until one late afternoon when Tessa came running into her grandmother’s house and announced that she and her friends had been walking on the public pathway behind Victor’s house and heard a gunshot.

    At first, Minette didn’t take Tessa seriously. The kids of Larkspur Lane, especially the teenagers, were notorious for embellishing stories and we took anything they had to say with a grain of salt. But this was different. Tessa was really scared. She insisted the gunshot was from inside the house and she wanted her grandmother to call the police now.

“It was probably just the TV,” I told Minette when she appeared on our porch. Oddly, the neighbors all seemed to gravitate to our place whenever there was commotion of any sort, as if Tim and I were known for being calm and collected.

Tim shot me a look. I knew what he was thinking, and I felt my anxiety go up a few notches.  “I’ll go over and take a look around,” he said. “Wait here.”

“Be careful,” said Minette. “Maybe take a weapon.” She looked around then handed him an old corn broom for sweeping the leaves off the porch.

Tim rolled his eyes behind her back and left without the broom.

I made Minette a cup of tea while we waited for Tim. Ten minutes later he was back, his face pale. “I’m calling the police.”

“What’s going on?” I demanded. He didn’t answer, just took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialled 911. “Someone is hurt,” I heard him say. He gave the address of the Yellow House (the number of the beast) and hung up.

We went back into the house and watched as the police arrived and rammed the front door of the Yellow House.  Minette parked herself in front of our picture window and gave us a play by play of the drama with the help of Tim’s binoculars.

“They’re bringing someone out!” she gasped, passing me the binoculars. “Oh sweet Jesus, in a body bag! Do you think that’s Victor?”

    And that’s when we found out what Victor really was, just a lonely old man who’d been estranged from his family for years, finally giving in to the despair by shooting himself in the head. We learned later that all that hammering and sawing was to renovate the house for his children, but they all refused to have anything to do with it. Who could blame them? Victor had blown his brains out in the living room and I’m sure that wasn’t a pretty sight. Eventually the Yellow House was torn to the ground to make way for a new modern home.  

    We had to blame each other, what else could we do?  There was no explaining why the neighbors of Larkspur Lane didn’t try to reach out to the poor old man. We were no better than the kids really.

    But for me, Victor was the perfect decoy to take the focus off Tim. Because they wouldn’t understand the kind of love that Tim and I have for each other; wouldn’t understand what happened that day when Tim found me as a messed-up teenager shooting up drugs in a back alley; wouldn’t understand how he put me in his car and brought me back to his place in the deserted countryside. For days, I screamed and screamed but eventually I came to forgive him, even began to worship him. He never hurt me, only wanted to love me. Eventually I did. I even bore his child, but Tim took it away, said he wanted me all to himself. That’s how much he loves me.

    Minette had noticed the marks on my wrists from the handcuffs. I had to pay for that one, but it was all my fault, not Tim’s. I have to be more careful, or he’ll will take away what little freedom I have. Tim knows how much I love him and he only chains me up in the basement room when he goes out alone, or if I defy him in some way. It’s for your own good he tells me, and I believe him. It’s because he doesn’t want anyone to take me away from him.

Yes, The Yellow House is gone, but Larkspur Lane still harbors secrets. And I’m one of them.