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It’s because our mother isn’t here.
Mother had died nine days ago. I wasn’t sad about it because she was a terrible person, and an even worse mother. Ever since we were old enough to form memories, she had made it abundantly clear that we weren’t her children—we were chains in her life, holding her back. We were the reason her business wasn’t successful, the reason she couldn’t find a good husband, the reason Newt Gingrich lost the 2012 Republican Primary. She had never outright blamed us for that last one, but when Romney won the nomination over Gingrich, she sure acted like it was our fault.
I started walking around the house, because walking made me feel like I was doing something. The garage was the first room on the right. Mom’s white Cadillac DeVille was parked inside, just as it was when I left eight years ago. The smell of wood was strong; the workbench that occupied the other half of the garage was covered with scrap, sawdust, and wood shavings, with a few newer-looking cardboard boxes arranged underneath. I guess our mother had still been working right up until the end.
As I turned away, I caught sight of the circuit breaker. The door was gone, and extra wires snaked out of the grey framing like locks of frizzy hair. I snorted at the sight. Yet another one of her destructive behaviors that hadn’t changed since I had left.
Past the garage, in a small hallway all by itself, were the two smaller bedrooms. One was our mother’s office, which was so filled with fabric and half-upholstered furniture that I could barely walk around inside. The other was the bedroom she made Brandi and I share. That room was empty except for our twin beds, positioned on opposite ends of the room, one under each window. There were no sheets, just the old mattresses sitting naked on the frames. The room had been repainted from pink to a harsh shade of white. It didn’t surprise me that she had gotten rid of everything Brandi and I had left here, but I was shocked she didn’t do something else with the space. She didn’t move half her fabric in here, or turn it into a cliché exercise room. She left it empty, with the door closed, like she wanted to pretend the room—and all memories of us—no longer existed.
The primary bedroom was attached to the living room. I only glanced inside before moving through the rest of the house: living room, dining room, kitchen. Everything was sterile and cold, just like it had been when we lived here. Just like our mother herself had been.
I felt better after walking through the house. It felt like confirmation that she was really gone. Part of my brain was nodding along, accepting this new world. I could feel it stretching its arms and realizing just how much bigger my reality now was.
I’m glad I came. This is therapeutic.
With renewed courage, I called the hotel and canceled my reservation. Brandi was going to be staying here, so I could do the same. And like a good sister, I could prepare the place for her. Without our mother here, this was just a house made of wood and brick and plaster. It wasn’t anything to be afraid of. I was twenty-six, damnit, not a little girl anymore.
The pantry was bare, and the fridge held only a few condiments and half a loaf of bread, so I drove to the store to get some supplies. I got all the basics, including new condiments and bread. Even though the few items in the fridge weren’t expired, I wanted to toss everything. If nothing remained, we would have a fresh start. Brandi, especially. I was only staying here a couple of weeks, but she was going to drive down and stay here for however long it took to settle all of our mother’s affairs. We were fraternal twins, and she had gotten all of the logical genes that helped with science and math, while I was blessed—or cursed—with the artistic streak. She worked for an insurance company, doing something math-related.
Brandi texted while I was checking out:
Brandi: You okay? I gave you exactly 30 minutes and I haven’t heard anything, so either you’re still sitting in your car, or you’re already getting wine drunk at the hotel.
Me: I’m doing surprisingly good! Walking through the house actually made me feel a lot better.
Me: Seriously, I’m great. Better than I expected, honestly.
Brandi: That’s great! I know exactly what you mean.
Brandi: Or at least, I hope I’ll feel the same way tomorrow when I walk around inside. I’m hoping to get there by lunch. I’ll take you to that sandwich shop after :-)
Me: I’d like that!
When I drove home, I eyed the electric-blue house two doors down from ours again. That house stirred just as many emotions as our mother’s home, although in a totally different way. I gave a start when I saw two boys, both with sandy-blond hair, go running across the front yard. A pretty woman with flowing blonde hair rose from the garden she was tending to say something to them.
It was like a vice had gripped my heart. Did Jack still live there? Was that his wife, and his kids?
I let out a sigh of relief when I noticed the father standing on a ladder, cleaning out the gutters. A man that was definitely not Jack Franco, the boy I had grown up with. If Jack still lived there, that would have made this trip a lot tougher.
He had probably moved out of town like the rest of us. He always liked to say that he was going to stay in Clearwater his entire life, but people said a lot of things when they were teenagers. Brandi had promised me, on more than one occasion, that she would marry Leonardo DiCaprio. “Fat chance, now that we’re twenty-six!” I said out loud, laughing at my own stupid joke. I would need to repeat it to Brandi when I saw her tomorrow.
As I approached our house, I thought about how good I felt. Our mother had been an emotional burden, and now that she was gone, that burden was lifted. It was awful to feel that way, of course, but that’s just how it was.
Maybe this trip won’t be so bad after all. I’ll be here two weeks. Maybe three. Brandi and I will spend a lot of time together settling our mother’s affairs at home, and at her upholstery shop downtown, and then I can go back to my own life.
I parked in the driveway this time, an act of defiance. I played music in the kitchen while cooking dinner; our mother hated music, and had always insisted that we use headphones so that she wouldn’t be distracted from her work. For the first time since we moved in back in 2009, the house actually felt alive. A place where a loving family full of loving people belonged.
I unwrapped the new bedsheets I had bought and made both twin beds. I hoped Brandi wouldn’t mind sharing a room again; I thought it would feel like we were having an adult sleepover. And if not, we could clean all the fabric and junk out of our mother’s office and move a bed in there.
We could do whatever we wanted.
That night, for the first time, I fell asleep in that house without any trouble.
I woke to a chaotic inferno.
2
Alyssa
