WHEN THE HOUSE CALLS HOME
We
lived in a yellow house that sat on a little hill in a neighborhood full of
people we liked. Our driveway was cut into blocks, each separated by a large
crack, running the width. I used to walk the lines of the driveway on my
tip-toes, a container of water on my head, testing how far I could get without
spilling. We moved in a week before Thanksgiving. On the second move in day, the
rain was lashing the windows. Wind slinking in through the fireplace.
Rain
dripped onto the cement from the edge of the gutter outside my window, sounding
like a metronome. I counted the seconds between each drip, as if it was
thunder. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi…,” until the next droplet fell and I
started over. Rain gushed from the clouds quicker, pelting the roof. Water was
coming from the gutter’s drain spout so fast, I could hardly get out the first
syllable.
The
cold glass window pushed against my forehead as I looked down. A small puddle
was pushing outward as the enlarged drops continued to fall into the center.
The water in the puddle began to slouch south, pointing towards the storm drain
at the bottom of our driveway. The drops no longer distinguishable in the family
of rain. They gained speed as they rushed down the hill, rolling on top of one
another. The family jerked to a halt, caught in a driveway crack. They lie
paralyzed and separated, grandmas over here, nephews and mothers over there.
__
When
I was six, I won a goldfish at a carnival and took her home, in the plastic bag
where all goldfish first live. On the drive home, I cupped her bag in one hand
and prodded the plastic with the other. Her eyes darted around; as she looked
everywhere she could all at once. I stared into them as she flicked around her
transparent house, they didn’t blink, like they were scared they were going to
miss something. I don’t think I’d want a home like that, one where everyone
could see me all the time. I kind of felt bad then. My eyes followed as she
danced around her plastic bag making loops and spirals with her fins. I didn’t
know what to do with her; didn’t have a home for her that wasn’t clear.
Home,
she and I sat on the porch swing. Back and forth, we flew. Looking through the
slats in the swing, there grew a pool of water on the wooden deck. Next to me,
my fish clung to the bottom of the plastic, breathing the last of the water as
it drained from the bag to the porch. Plastic in hand, foot falls quick. We
reached the drain spout of the gutter, water slipping into the plastic bag as I
held it under the mouth of the spout. Water swirled with gold as she danced in
new waters.
We
sat on the porch steps, with her in her plastic home and me in my sandals.
Later that afternoon I poured her down the storm drain, giving her back.
__
Burnt rubber. Metal shimmering with heat. Broken glass
and broken bones. Laying on the concrete, face down, my breath coming sharp in
my lungs as they grasp for oxygen. Fingers, singed and raw, I run them down my
left forearm: not broken. Part of me tries to make sense of what just happened.
My legs feel whole too and I think about rolling over and trying to sit up. My ribs
crunched together even as a memory jumps to the front of my mind. The
firefighter who came to fourth grade, “If you cannot remember how you got where
you are, do not move.” I tried to retrace how I got from singing in the car to
crumbling cement. Instead, his words circled my mind like a broken record.
I can hear the taillight rapping against the bumper. Clinging
to thin, striped wire as it knocks against the car, like a metronome ticking
for a choir. Eyes squeezed shut I listen hard. The hissing of the car, the
taillight’s taps, a gasping breath to my left. I roll my head a fractional amount.
My left eye shows me a body lying on its back, head pointed at me. A raised arm
and I could have touched her hair. Bones where they shouldn’t be, too much
blood. Dead pan stare at the girl who had just cranked the music, minutes ago. I
can’t stop staring.
A siren bites into the air, silence ripped. Let the sound
drip into my ear like a lullaby, as I drift.
__
Plastic, lavender turrets poked through the sparkly pink
roof of my princess castle. Yellow and beribboned the castle door stood open in
the backyard. Forced into snow boots by dad, followed into the yard by mom. The
snow had been cleared inside, replaced with sand from our broken sandbox. Glittering in silver, the words The Princess Is In bedazzled the back
wall. Squeals erupted from me as my mom snapped blurry
picture after another.
Christmas memories bunch together. No recollection of other
presents that year. I remember begging to have a castle sleepover with mom.
Remember building sandcastles in March. Remember letting sand slip through slim
fingers as I sat in time-out.
“It’s time for the palace to go,” mom said to dad, sometime
in summer. I sat in mom’s office, windows open, as they talked on the porch about
the removal of my castle. I was too old for it, summer before seventh grade.
I
retraced my four year old self’s Christmas morning steps from the living room
to the turreted castle. Door shut, sounds of summer blocked out, I sat. Dug my
fingers into the cool sand, collecting small rocks under my nails. Sandy
fingers skimmed my cheek as a tear escaped my eye. Embarrassment swept over me,
even though no one was there to see me cry in my childhood haunt.
A soft knock on the door, rapid blinking, and the door
opened before words could process in my brain. Mom walked in, sat in sand, and
looked at me. Sucked in my breath as I waited for her to tell me what to feel.
Sad smile on her lips, she said, “Sometimes it’s just time for things to go.”
__
Whitney
sat with her legs crossed on the kitchen counter, eating honey-nut Cheerios out
of the box. I sat on the carpet in front of the sink staring up at her as she
talked all about the rights and wrongs of eye shadow colors. She seemed so big,
sitting on the counter, far above me. She created this perfect man in thin air
and made me promise that I would be a bridesmaid. I remember when Whitney
graduated high school and we all stuck our hands in wet cement. She leaned down
and whispered to me, squeezing my pinky with hers.
Now
all I can do is stare at the gold urn sitting in the middle of the oak altar,
as it peers down at me. Flowers,
shockingly alive in their vases. They spill onto the stairs, dripping with
petals. I look around at the mass of people clad in black and try to spot the
ones I know. Grammy and Poppop sit behind us, sad smiles fixed on their frozen faces.
Josh’s body tremors in the first row, cheeks, patchy and pink. We are sitting
in the second pew. My dad on the right, eyes unblinking, thin lips white. A
shaking voice comes through the borrowed sound system, sounding tinny.
“We
had this sandbox in the backyard for years. Whitney would sit picking up
handfuls of sand in her fists, then drizzle it back into the box,” my mom
paused, voice quivering, a small gasp. “Sometimes the wind would push the sand
back at her, clinging to her shirt, and she would get angry at the sand, saying,
‘That is not your home sand, you live in the box’.” My breath caught. That’s a
church thing, right? “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Love from Pullman
The Blonde and the Bullshit
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