Memories

It's almost as if I have a memory of my own, of the daffodils that prosper and bloom in the spring, the apricot jam drenched in over-ripeness in the dark back corner of the fridge, the incessant, proud oaks that seems to only grow taller even after they had been trimmed, the whispers of the wind carried by the saltiness of the river just down past the wild pansies that occupied the forgotten gardens.

It is odd because I had never stepped foot here, at least not a set of my own. It was my mother who had, though. She had even lived here for quite a portion of her life, with her mother, her father and her sister and her two brothers.

Perhaps it is merely her stories, rooting themselves in my head as memories of my own, because god knows how fondly she spoke about my mother and the place she grew up. It was almost cruel, rubbing salt in the wound. Her past, rooted in the same place with the same people she grew so close with and so fond of; a right antithesis of my life.

I never blamed my mother. Not for never having a life in one place, not for never having a friend I could call my own, not for never settling down and for teaching me to never unpack my boxes. Although I never understood why we were always moving, I never blamed her. How could I? Even if I wanted to, it is too late now.

The familiarity of the house is uncanny in comparison to the picture I held in the back of mind. Just how much had my mother spoken about this place? It must have been every spare moment she had the pleasure of holding, which truth be told couldn't have been an awful lot. My mother was always good at telling stories. She was good at painting a picture in somebody's mind. Perhaps, this is why I recognise the familiar portrait of the black and white checkered floorboards, and the navy-blue cupboards which matched the navy-blue wooden dining set of five chairs that were sat in the middle of the room, opposite the kitchen.

Yes, I know. Why would there be five dining room chairs in a household of six? I asked my mother the same question. Her answer was simple. Oh, so simple, but oh so sad.

"My father never sat at the table, Dear. Mother always said there was never a need for any more seats than those who preoccupy them at the same time." She smiled.

I remember her smile too. A little crooked but it was always filled with a warmth, one that seemed a little out of place, one that didn't necessarily seem forced, but you could have argued it was perhaps missing something. She had a small dimple, just under her cheekbone on her left cheek. She hated it. She never told me of course, but any photo she posed for it was always her right side that was captured. A very calculated move.

I moved my way through the kitchen, a symphony of mold and dust serenaded the air and I almost felt guilty. I stepped into the lounge room. That same mandarin orange, cotton couch, accompanied by a glass coffee table right where mother had described. It was as if nothing had ever been moved, it was exactly as my mother had described it over thirty years ago in the epiphany of late-night conversations of which her past had got the better of her as her lips loosened under the influence of red wine.

"Oh, it was filled with the loveliest of tunes. Tunes which I wouldn't even be able to name. It was always the most unusual of artists that whispered sweet nothings to my mother. She would always admire the most unusual things; artists, artwork, people, books. She had the most peculiar tastes and the most interesting ways of looking through the lense of life. I would often ask her hypothetical scenarios, just to listen to the ways she would handle situations and the ways she thought about nothing in particular. I had never met anyone like, in all my years of living." My mother smiled, her eyes dull, glossed over with a grey that I didn't notice at the time.

I made my way up the transpiring circus of what could have been thousands of steps to the second floor. The floor I dreaded the most.

"My mother always used to write, in fact, I hardly remember a time in which she was not holding that beautiful, little leather pouch she kept wrapped around her notebook. Who knows what she was writing about, for whenever I asked, she would simply tell me it was nothing important, just a reflection she may look back on one day to acknowledge how far she had made it." But my mother always used to say, "I would bet my life on it that if she had but one thing she could save in a house burning with a ferocious, orange flame, it would be diary she came out with."

It was the diary I thought about, moving step by step up the wandering staircase. It always intrigued me, it was even the inspiration for me starting up my own, and the many that came after. I would also argue that it was the reason my mother journalled too.

Within a matter of moments, I was standing in front of the room that was once my mother's and my mother's mother's. After my grandmother passed, all my mother asked for was the house, which arguably was penniless against what my aunties and uncles walked away with, so they settled with this and barely gave my mother any grief at all. For they must have thought, what a foolish girl? Out of all the antiques and jewellery my grandmother could not bare to part with, well one would be absurd to settle for anything less. So inevitably, they walked away with it all, leaving my mother with barely the pillars of the house, the scraps they deemed unimportant—invaluable—and the house itself, which if it were on stilts, they would have found a way to take it from my mother too. But luckily for her, they were uninterested.

I wonder if this was the reason my mother never contacted anyone from her family again. I wonder if this was the reason she cut ties and her family had to find out she was vilely ill from an invitation to a funeral, rather than a phone call to perhaps feign amends in the hopes of something in return. Which may have been why my mother never informed any of them.

I wasn't nearly as lucky, for I did not have a brother, nor a sister to fight and bicker with over the materialistic matter of mother's death. Everything was left to me, for she had no other children, her husband had left her early on and regrettably, she did not speak to anyone of her living relatives. Some would say I was lucky in this sense, but mother was all but penniless towards the end. Yet, even if she were rich beyond belief, I much would have preferred having a brother or sister to share it with; not the money, for that did not interest me, but the journey. Someone going through the same things to confide with, to simply hold the hand of. But I was alone.

My aunties and uncles did not even know of my existence until the funeral, which in hindsight, might have been the only reason they attended, as horrible as it sounds. For I could have sworn I saw the light drain from their eyes when they were informed of who I was. Oh, so I shall inherit nothing then. It was written on their faces and it was then I decided mother was right, and I too, wanted nothing more to do with them.

Musk and mold sprouting from corners untouched by sunlight in years was thick in the air, it was clear mother never made it into their bedroom. I wonder where she slept. Her old childhood bedroom? Did she ever set foot in her mother's bedroom again?

Everything had been cleaned out, just like mother said. Apart from the sheets on the bed thick with dust and an antique wooden dresser, which truth be told they probably only hadn't taken because it was far too big and far too much effort.

It was only then I spied a small leather pouch. The leather pouch was worn and torn with a name engraved on the front, in the bottom corner. I didn't need to read it to know who it belonged to. 

My heart stammered, pulsing faster by the minute as I moved slowly towards the diary. My grandmother's diary. Why was it here? Did mother do this? A million thoughts nestled under my skin as I played out scenarios in my head. 

I ran my fingers over it, no dust to be found, like it had been sealed in time. I gently picked it up, but an envelope fell from the seams of the pouch and onto the bed. My name printed in writing I would recognise anywhere.

My Dearest Evangeline,

I hope this letter finds you well. I hope you shall not cry for me. I am not sad and I am not lost to you, my child. I am here with you, within the walls, I always will be.

You see, child. Nothing is ever really lost, for they are cherished within the memories that we hold dear. They are not the key to the past, but to the future, the bridge between the two. That house, if nothing else, please cherish it. The memories within those walls will keep you company in the darkest of times, I promise you. And you can fill it with even more of your own, make memories for yourself that will hold hands with those before you.

I will always be watching over you. We will be together again, but not until you have lived a life as grand as I. A life filled with memories you shall never part with.

Lots of love,

Your Mother.

I see now. I understand. It all makes sense.

What nobody seemed to realise is that it wasn't the jewellery, or the cutlery, or the expensive fur coats and antique lamps that my mother cared about, nor was it the shoes grandmother owned or the boxes of buttons and pearls she had sworn she would craft with but never got around to it. No, she didn't care about those things. It was not what was inside the house but rather the house itself she cared for; the memories contained within the walls that whispered in the dead of night. It was the memories that belonged to the house she never wanted to lose. Which I realise now was the reason why she never settled. She could've settled somewhere and raised me in the comfort of one place, but she didn't. She didn't because there was only ever one place she would truly settle, but she couldn't until it was time. This was why in her will she left everything to me. All the money she had saved, all the things she had owned but she asked me something. To take the house. It was never something she told me to do, it was just simply something she hoped for, something she wanted for me. Her dying wish. The most precious possession to her that had been out of her reach for so long, she had finally got it back and now she wanted me to have it. How could I say no?

Sure, I had to pick up my whole life and move halfway across the country to the rolling hills, but it was all my mother ever asked of me and now I understand why. 

"I will cherish this house, I promise." A tear escaped and blurred my mother's writing, and I could feel her warmth, sat beside me at the edge of the bed. I realised I would never be alone again, which looking back now, is perhaps the reason why my mother never left her childhood suburban house.