Ways To Remember

This was part of a collab with Echo Ross! She’s one of the moooost WONDERFUL people I’ve met here on reedsy and she makes awesome stories too (really what more could you want in a person) ;o I’ll have the link to her account in the comments, you can read her perspective here:

https://blog.reedsy.com/short-story/geauhb/

Enjoy!

The fiery sense of longing that sets my being ablaze thrives from the living room, to the kitchen, the hall; up the staircase, the feeling rises in me with a writhing agony.

How long has it been?

A lifetime of a faraway dream unravels before me and grasps me tight in its hold.

The fear of leaving this final recollection of the past was almost like pain. I try to evade all acknowledgement of it.

From the attic to the rooms, from the rooms down the basement. It finds me at last and I’m gone.

-

The house became filled with the light set by the dusking sun, it stained the threads that bound fabric. Golden particles of dust that glimmered in the air had frayed from the drapes that hung lowly and floated above ground. And a savory tang oozing from the kitchen pervaded the atmosphere.

A faint sizzle of food can be heard from the kitchen along with the rising swirls of steam. I can say with certainty that the Loves’ customs nowadays had become mine, as it would break the fluidity of time.

Day was no longer day, and night was no longer night. Hours became the different shades of warmth and the cool, clocks were no longer important neither. Morning is the foggy blur of actions of the fragments of a family in the house. Noon is the sweltering heat of the sun over empty rooms. Evening is the sound of dull chatter and the smell of cooked vegetables. Night is the whisper of erratic breathing as we all pretend to sleep.

Watching what my family had become was frightening. Even more so how I had come to do so. 

I have regrown into the house like how a tree would burrow its roots taut in the ground. I extend myself into all rooms and sides of the wall within the residence. I soak in the light that comes through the windows, with the dust; my non-existent limbs play endlessly over the surface of things.

Cammie was preparing food in the kitchen. How she had taken the duty to be the motherly figure to her brother had helped things get around; she takes care of Auggie’s meals for when he comes home from school then cleans up. I can’t remember when I had truly seen her happy last, though the traces of a smile that played on her lips knowing her brother was doing fine seemed to be enough for now. 

Thinking of the children always brought an unwelcome gnawing at the depths of my consciousness. Being trapped to be this homely form was punishment in a way that all I wanted to do was scoop the kids in a welcome embrace and reassure them with fulfilled promises as a mother would.

I no longer have a heart, or any other assets for that matter, so to say my heart speeds up wouldn’t be true. But there is a quickening, a sudden stir of emotions that force their way out and allow me to come to an understanding. Almost humane.

Just as how it was happening now.

There was a pitter patter of footsteps by the door, then a creak, and I felt the pressure of Auggie’s shoes on the floor. His bag soon followed too.

I’ve never recovered from seeing this new him. I would always expect to see my same boy with too-big denim short pants that go well below his knees, but the person who came through the door today was not Auggie. Perhaps it was someone else looking like the more grown version of him, sadder and slightly taller.

He took the seat on the couch, carefully avoiding the remnants of food strewn across. He looked at it with disgust, not with the same comfort years ago.

Over the time I’ve been here, the furniture has grown to me in a strange sense where sometimes I would feel myself moving with them. They were filled with the memories of a past life, or dream. Or someone playing at the pictures. The couch was the feeling of a newborn Cammie against me as I caressed her puffy cheeks. The couch was the ache beginning at the side of my ribs as Auggie and Cammie fought in identical-looking princess dresses. The couch was the passion of a husband’s love to care for me as I slowly grew weak.

Both the children were in the living room. Cammie handed Auggie a granola bar in between her cooking. She makes time to cheer her brother up, “Hard day?”

He nodded with hands to his eyes, staring upwards.

“There you go, Auggie.” Her lips brushed softly against Auggie’s forehead in a quick kiss. A warm feeling brewed in me, the desire to be with them in that moment badly.

He said thanks as she disappeared through the door that led to the other room. He waited before he brought the photo album by the nearby table to himself. A crisp flip of pages sounded out as he continued to look through the photos.

Pictures of young Cammie and fetal Auggie filled the pages to the brim. It formed a bulbous mound over the different sticker shapes that Cammie had insisted the album needed, I remember.

Carmen, good Cammie, was the smell of sunshine and the funny shape of pigtails that her silhouette loved to wear. She kept her nice dresses under hidden compartments to herself, and liked twirling them in the morning light. She especially liked twirling them in the morning light with Auggie by her side.

And she makes time to cheer her brother up.

The kids huddled in the couch giggling and joking between themselves as they looked through memories of their childhood and it occurs to me; they still can speak to each other without saying words as they always have.

They went through the pages at an understanding, laughing to gain comfort from the other’s joy. Their eyes skimmed through the pictures sporadically, searching for traces of me and their smiles turning tight when they did.

I let myself feel the warmth that were my children in between the cushions with a foreboding that my being here (or lack thereof) had them bound to me in an exhausting burden. It feels as though I had infected them with the same forlorn that had killed me eventually.

Gone were the reassuring words that continue to tell me I was the air that bore breath to those around me, I became the opposite with time. I remember the intensity and fervor I had for Eric, and how I tore myself over the things I wanted to bring myself to tell him.

Eric was the match that brought light to the wick that made it burn in passion so fiercely. He was made of the thoughts that left me asking a thousand questions that go for as long as dawn when the birds turn lively and crickets dwindle.

He was the answer to a big, unspoken puzzle.

The three of them, Auggie, Cammie, and Eric, sat by together and reminisced on the things that refused to last. Lethargy wore them down with shadows forming underneath their eyes and frowns curved into their lips.

Auggie began to cry.

“I miss her.”

The ache at the center of my being began to grow. The trepidation I’ve caused upon my family looms over me in a great murk.

Auggie, my sweetest Auggie, was crying over me. He was the moon that glowed and led me out of the darkness of the night. He was my same child that liked to lie on the wooden floors of the house, like an infant— entwined against me, hand on cheek. It’s the closest I’ve been to hugging anybody since I was alive.

“I know, Champ, I know. I do too.” Eric said with a hand to Auggie’s nape, rubbing in soothing curls. “But she’s watching over us and keeping us safe. That, I know for sure. And we’re going to be okay.”

There was a scant flame lit by fear. My family needed me gone to recover from the mess I’ve made, as much as I’d wanted to hold on to them for as long as I could.

What they don’t tell you about sparks and flames is how fast it spreads. Fire goes through everything and crumbles it to ash faster than any of us can stop it.

The fiery sense of longing that sets my being ablaze thrives from the living room, to the kitchen, the hall; up the staircase, the feeling rises in me with a writhing agony.

How long has it been?

A lifetime of a faraway dream unravels before me and grasps me tight in its hold.

The fire grows quickly. A single spark of a match was all it took; a memory. The heat of the golden sun, a first kiss, and the grin on my children’s faces as we spent our last moments together.

The fear of leaving this final recollection of the past was almost like pain. I try to evade all acknowledgement of it.

What mattered was now. My children and husband, smiling in melancholy yearning for everything that had been lost.

From the attic to the rooms, from the rooms down the basement. It finds me at last and I’m gone.