That Old Cottage

Home.

That was what that old cottage was and always had been. With its crooked chimney and ivory covered walls, it stood like a stubborn memory, refusing to budge and fade away even when the rest of the town did.

The town had shrunk with her absence. The coffee shop Mira and her mother used to sit in every Sunday in winter turned into an empty space with a sign reading "For Lease". The cottage, on the other hand, still remained as it always was. Just there. Playing flashbacks of her childhood.

3 months ago, she just stepped foot out of the funeral. Her mother's funeral.

The city still moved on, but she didn't. Neither did her heart.

She didn't know what to do. It was like she was always 3 steps behind everyone else.

She sat home. Waiting. Waiting for something. Something.

A letter came home.

Mira didn't open it for a day, then a month.

Finally, she opened it.

Her mother's lawyer wrote to her. "The cottage is yours now. Come when you're ready."

Mira closed the letter and sat there in silence. Sat there for a bit too long. Still waiting.

She had never cried since the funeral. She couldn’t. Something inside her had gone numb.

Everything sunk beneath everything else, creating deeper and darker parts of her.

That night, she dreamed of the cottage.

Of soft winds brushing against the windows.

Of her mother’s voice humming from the kitchen.

Of hands brushing flour off Mira’s nose and laughter that filled the rooms.

When she woke, her pillow was damp.

Three days later, she bought a train ticket.

She didn’t tell anyone.

She didn't have anyone to tell anyways.

She just packed her bag, turned off her phone, and left.

The train ride there wasn't too long. Her head rest against the glass pane for a bit too long, lasting a minor headache on the spot.

Her headphones were tucked in, though the last song played 2 hours ago. The silence buzzing in her ears somehow pleased her.

She stared out. Everything was blurred. Trees and distant towns were the only things she saw. A lot changed.

Mira hadn't stepped foot inside it since she last left it. Her mother’s voice still echoed in the corners, between the floorboards, in the creak of the old rocking chair. But now, years later, the key still fit. The door still opened.

Only the dust changed.

Mira walked from room to room, fingers running through every furniture that brought back memories of her childhood. The couch she used to bounce on. The dinner table she used to spill milk on. Her bed. Her mother's bed.

The clock was stuck. Stuck on the hour that everything changed.

She paused in the kitchen. The same floral curtains fluttered slightly from the cracked window. The same dented teapot sat on the stove. Mira placed her suitcase down and sat at the table, the chair groaning beneath her weight like it remembered.

The first night was the hardest. It always is. The house screeched, groaned, and shifted with every gust of wind, as if breathing out its loneliness.

She wrapped herself in a quilt that smelled faintly of cedar and lavender, and cried without sound.

On the second day, she went to the garden. It was overgrown with plants being everywhere. She spent hours pruning, tending, losing herself in the silence.

On the third morning, she found the journal. It was tucked in the drawer beneath the silverware, wrapped in a cloth napkin.

Her mother’s handwriting, still elegant despite the fading ink, greeted her. For Mira, if you ever come home.

The entries were dated from the last year of her mother’s life. Every page was filled with stories, memories, reflections. There were confessions about her fears too. Confessions about the nights she stayed awake wondering if she had been a good mother for her.

"You were always stronger than me." Were the last words.

Mira read until the sun went down, tears slipping silently down her cheeks. In those pages, her mother lived again. Not as a fading voice or a distant figure, but as a woman full of love, doubt, and quiet bravery.

That night, she started a small fire in the fireplace. She didn't know why. She just felt like being warm. Maybe a part of us was just cold.

She also found the music box. The one her mother used to wind every night before bed. It was hidden behind books on the shelf, its once-golden trim tarnished with time. When she wound it, the melody stuttered at first, then slowly found its rhythm.

Mira listened, eyes closed, to the lullaby that used to carry her into her dreams. Dreams that would teach her. Dreams that would make her dream. Dream that would bring her back to home.

In the attic, she discovered a box of letters her parents had exchanged during her father’s deployment. Pages and pages of hope, love, and longing. Some were silly, filled with doodles and terrible puns. Others were heartbreaking — her father worried he wouldn’t make it home, her mother clinging to faith and memories. Mira sat for hours, tracing their words, feeling the pulse of love that had built this home.

She stayed three more nights. On the final morning, she opened every window. Let the wind breathe through the halls. She cleaned the dust from the picture frames, wiped the fingerprints from the mirror.

Before she left, she packed a small box. Inside: the journal, a worn teacup, and a faded photograph of her mother holding her as a baby.

She walked to the cliffside one last time, the one that overlooked the lake. The water shimmered in the morning light, a mirror reflecting the sky. It was here where her parents had taken her every summer, teaching her how to skip stones and catch dragonflies. She sat, legs crossed, and whispered a thank you to the wind.

She was relieved. She smiled.

She finally felt like the holes she developed were filled back up.

Now, she finally understood.

This place was more than just wood and stone.

It was a beginning.

And an ending.

And no matter where she went next, she’d carry this place with her.

This place was home.

Home.