Making Amends

For a very long he had considered the shell before him his second home.

‘It looks like it always has’ Tom mumbled to himself in awe. As though when he left, it had been encompassed in a time bubble. But then again, what had he really expected? His grandparents were meticulous people and not a single strand of hair fell out of place unless they asked it to. This was the first time he was stepping back here in twenty years and their conservative nature had not allowed them to change a thing, not even the railing that had always been falling apart at the front. He wished that this visit was a personal prompt but…it wasn’t.

As life would have it, his grandparents had left him the house when they passed on and he was here to see if he could sell it. He needed the money.

The front lawn was well tended and the trees along the drive were in full bloom like they always had been, like his grandfather had dared them to see with would step out of line first away from his watchful eye. Laughter from years past caught up with him and he saw his young self running wild in that lawn. He had always enjoyed coming over, it had made him feel close to the mother he had never met. It felt like a different kind of bond when he sat on her swing in the backyard or at the table for meals like she must have when she was about his age.

His grandparents were the best people he had ever known and he was sad that it had taken death for him to revisit this truth.

The house had always been infused with life, like it had taken an over-helping of sugar. The front door was always revolving with a fury of visitors, either his grandmother’s knitting club or his grandfather’s social club and the thousand of dinner guests they had for their dinner parties. The radio was perpetually providing background music to the activities that went on at home and was turned up loud after 4pm. With a little imagination and memory he could see it in its glory days. The good old days!

‘Shall we?’ The realtor’s no-nonsense voice brought him staggeringly back to the present. Those were better times he thought to himself. The past was always better. Tom was yet to tell his father about the house. He was sure that this information would not be valued for its worth by the man who had tried to draw a wedge between him and his maternal grandparents. He didn’t understand why his father had stopped bringing him over. And even when he had grown up enough to return on his own, he thought he had successfully crossed over into stranger territory...and trying to stay afloat in adulthood was a full time job. Life got in the way when he was all grown up. Not a worthy excuse but how do you undo years of silence and pick off where you left off?

He opened the front door and it was like walking back through time.

There was the large dinning room to the side of the foyer. It was as large as should have been expected for the parties his grandparents were fond of throwing. He touched the large arched chairs and the thick mahogany table. So many memories here, he was sure of it and it felt like the right ones were just waiting at the fore front of his mind. There were unfortunately pushed back by the crushing memory of him crawling across the carpet below the table, hoping to get a piece of food. The memory hit him so strongly he could remember the thoughts of the six year old boy crawling on the floor ‘I’m so hungry’ the six year old moaned and his stomach rumbled in agreement. He shook himself from that memory.

‘Most families these days are looking for an open floor plan so this floor plan won’t sell as fast,’ The realtor filled in the silence, ‘Unless of course the buyer has enough money for renovations. The floor itself though is in good shape. Are you planning on selling the house with the furnishings? because I think this table fits the space perfectly. Anyone would be hard-pressed to find a table large enough.’

‘I’m not sure. We’ll see,’ Tom gave a half-hearted answer. His mind was trying to put together the starving 6-year old Tom with the laughing 6-year old Tom in the front yard. It was probably a one time event, he reasoned. He had probably gone to bed earlier and they hadn’t wanted to wake him up for food. That was it. That definitely made more sense. And with that they pressed on to the next room.

The sitting room right through the dinning room was smaller and more intimate.

‘OK, this won’t do!’ The realtor spoke up as he went to the only window in the room, ‘The natural lighting in here is poor. This probably was never used as a day room.’ Tom looked up to the masterpiece of the room, the chandelier. He could agree that it wasn’t a day room, he couldn’t recall sitting there during the day and why sit there when there was the outside to explore.

He looked at the rocking chair by the side and could see his grandmother knitting another scarf to give away at Christmas. There was the large ugly yellow couch where he sat with his grandfather to do some evening reading. Evening listening, really since it was his grandfather who always read to him some of the poetry from the books on the shelf.

Grandfather was always giving Tom lectures on how to behave like a real man on that couch. And most of those speeches were packed with comments of how he should never be a good-for-nothing like his father, or a lazy-bum like his father, or an arrogant-entitled prick like his father. Or how with the right sort of training, they could drown out the part of him that was entirely his father. Tom glanced to the mirror on the wall and his father’s face stared back. They had clearly not succeeded in drowning out his father.

Now that he thought about it, was his distaste for his father a personal realisation or the fruit of years of indoctrination?

There was a big red cupboard by the doorway and he remembered how much he loved hiding in it. It was his go-to location when they played hide and seek with the grands. One day, he remembered, he hid so well they didn’t find him for days. That particular memory came with such force it pushed tears out of his eyes, a seven year old, now a little too big to comfortably hide in the cupboard, was clawing at the door and begging to be let out. But if he had hidden by himself, why hadn’t he been able to push his way out? And why couldn’t they ‘find him’ if he was shouting and making known his hiding spot. Why did he scream himself hoarse that he’d be ‘good this time’? Did games require children to make such declarations?

‘Happy memories, eh?’ The realtor mistook the purpose behind the tears. Something wasn’t right with his memories.

They continued to the kitchen. A small little room that had always smelled like cookies and milk. He could tell his grandmother had not been in here for a while because of the stale air that enveloped him when he entered. All the appliances in the house were old, they wouldn’t sell at any auction.

‘You can sell these as scrap though. I don’t deal much in that industry but I guess you can get something out of it. This floor tile and back-splash tile are up for personal interpretation. Some people will love it and others will hate it. The kitchen though is so small compared to what sells on the market these days. This back shed though gives room for expansion and that’s nice.’ All this was said as the realtor took inventory of anything, opening and shutting cabinets, opening the back door and looking around there, leaving Tom to deal with his ghosts.

He saw the small pantry by the side and another memory drowned him.

He was trying to find something in the dark. Food, of course and he knew that there was always a cookie jar at the top of the shelf. The hunger he felt was palpable, to the point that he could describe what a state of hunger was - an internal revolt with a thousand sharp needles pressed against your stomach, a tongue so dry and heavy and one constant thought running through his head. In his single minded pursuit he must have thrown things to the ground and alerted the grandparents to what he was doing. The next thing that registered was that he was face to face with his grandmother and she didn’t look to excited to see him down in her precious pantry.

‘What are you doing here?’ she grabbed the jar he had suffered for out of his hands.

‘I was hungry and thought I would get something to eat.’ Why was he always seemingly hungry in his memories when he lived in a house that was filled with food?

‘You are just like your father!’ she said it as a snarl and for the first time, he registered that she didn’t say this as a compliment. To teach him a lesson, she threw him to the shed at the back and locked him out of the house.

He didn’t dare go see the backyard, scared of what memories would assault him there. Had his mind conjured a different reality of his experiences here?

‘It’s a big enough backyard. That is a selling point for families with children and pets. It’s also fenced in so that’s a plus,’ The realtor bounded in with energy, oblivious to the turmoil Tom found himself in.

They looked in on the only bedroom on the ground floor, the master bedroom. It had worked well for his grandparents in their old age. It smelled like lemons and tobacco, his grandmother and grandfather’s signature smells. There was nothing much to see in this room; the bed and closets, a dresser by the side and a small bathroom that looked like an addition. He found he had no memory of this room and was able to enjoy the monologue the realtor kept up with as he went all over the house.

‘The bathroom will need improvements and people these days prefer the walk-in closets but it’s a large enough size for a master.’ -looking in on the bathroom- ‘Good lighting from the windows and a nice view of the backyard.’ - frowning at the floral curtains that still hang in place - ‘I don’t know so much about it being on the ground floor but if I tell people to prepare for old age then I think I can adequately sell it.’ - stamping his feet on the carpet - ‘I am not sure about the carpet in the room, again up for personal taste. The dressers are old,’ - touching the dresser - ‘we can sell them at auction. But some people may want to re-purpose them. You haven’t said a thing, yet, do you want these pieces or should I take pictures and start listing?’ He didn’t wait for Tom to give an answer as he bounded up the stairs to the other floor. 

They went up the stairs and to the study.

‘This makes a good office space or if the family wants it can be converted into another bedroom’ The commentary continued before Tom had time to take in the room.

This was another room he had never been allowed in but it didn’t matter because there was no door and he could always see whatever he wanted without going in. But also, once in a while, when he was sure his grandparents were out for the night, he’d go in and sit in the office chair and pretend to be his grandfather. His grandfather was always in this room and his wife complained about him loving his books more than her. If they wanted to have serious conversations though, that was the place for them and Tom knew to stay well away.

He remembered the conversation they had the last full night he was here when they thought he had gone to bed.

‘I’ve tried to love him but I can’t. I just always see my little girl and how she is not here anymore. And it’s all his fault. He is so much like her! And so much like that devil. Let’s send him away before we do anything we regret.’

With that particular memory out of the way, he remembered all the things he had been shoving down. He had always had the feeling his grandparents didn’t like him and tried to get out of coming to visit but his father was adamant. This relationship would do all of them some good. Well, he at least got a house out of it.

He opened one of the drawers and saw a stack of letters. The envelopes were covered in his wobbly school-boy handwriting. Slowly by slowly the pieces were fitting together the way they should be and not the way he wanted them to be. His father hadn’t kept him away from his grandparents. He wasn’t the villain of the story. His father had encouraged him to write to his grandparents if he was no longer going to make the trip to see them. The letters had gone unanswered and at the threshold of his teenage years he had desired not to pursue the relationship anymore.

There was a letter waiting for him on top of the desk. The realtor allowed him the privacy to read it alone as he looked in on the two bedrooms. The letter was simply an apology from the grandparents over the way they had treated him over the years. The house was a poor way of making amends. They had taken out all the anger that grief comes with on him. It wasn’t excusable but maybe he could one day understand their perspective. He pocketed the letter and decided to come back to it when he wasn’t high on emotions.

The room in the corner still had its door shut. When he saw it, it crossed his mind that in all the years he had been over, he had never entered it. The first time he had tried to, his grandfather had shaken him up and told him not to ever enter it. Not to even think about it or he would regret it. And his grandfather could be scary alright. He had a lot of strength and agility for a man of his age.

Seeing the room, he figured it must have belonged to his teen - age

mum. All these years later, it looked like she had just stepped out to visit someone and was coming back very soon. The bed was made and covered in a floral blanket with dolls and pillows propped up on the bed.. The windows were barred and obstructed by a large tree on the outside. They had done their best to keep her locked up in the house.

His grandparents had tried to hide their grief well but had never succeeded. He had been able to piece the story together from what he had heard. His mother had died at 16 during child birth. His father was about fifteen years older than mum and had been expected to know better than to ‘prey on a baby’ as his grandfather had spat out one day. But in here he could find a better story, his mum’s unbiased story, because now she was gone and didn’t need to defend herself to anyone.

He picked out one of the diaries to read as the realtor took stock of what they could sell. Sensing that Tom was now in another zone, the realtor walked out to survey the second room and bathroom.

‘I think I have taken all the information I need and will be listing the property for sale as early as tomorrow.’

‘Actually, I have changed my mind. I think I can redeem the memories I have of this place. I’ll keep it.’