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After changing and tying my hair into a high ponytail, I set about scrubbing the counter surfaces inside the tiny kitchen. There was no avoiding the fact that every wall, counter, crevice, and room in this dilapidated house would need to be cleaned to make it functional enough to live inbeforeit was even close to being ready to sell.
I had no intention of burning it to the ground, not while it held my momma’s heart and soul like a treasure in it. The house was all I had left of her, but it held so much of past hurts as well.
There was no peace for me here and no force of bliss to intertwine my heart and soul.
I cleaned until my body protested. For hours, I scrubbed the shelves, the floors, and even the fireplace. Every surface of the kitchen had been touched. The grime and dirt invaded my skin and the fibers of my clothes.
Once I was done, I sat with a fresh cup of tea without feeling like the room was closing in on me. I imagined the world inside this room with my mother and her colorful spirit as we baked cookies for our tea parties. I could feel her smiling down at me, dusting my nose with a floured finger before throwing her head back in all-consuming laughter. My mother, happy, was a sight to behold.
Free and spirited.
Rinsing my cup, I gave in to the exhaustion. After climbing the stairs to my old bedroom and flopping down on the bed, barely undressing without bothering to wash, I fell into an instant deep sleep.
* * *
The dust danced in the morning light streaming through the torn lace curtains. It seemed I hadn’t moved throughout the night, waking in the same position I had fallen asleep.
My body was acutely aware of how old and stale the mattress was. The springs pressed into my back, and the smell assaulted my already sensitive nostrils.
Ordering a new mattress was a priority, especially if I were to stay here as long as I expected.
Memories flooded back when I stretched my aching muscles. So much of my childhood was spent hiding out in this exact room. My dolls and the pre-owned teddy bear my mother had picked up at the thrift shop became my only friends. Not once hadtheycomplained about how tattered my hair was or how my clothes were too small. We sat together for hours while I styled their hair, and we gossiped about the cruel children this town offered up and reimagined the world outside the property, which held us confined and safe.
An illusion of my mother gracefully entering my room held my imagination captive for a moment as I adjusted to the light. She was no longer there, however, no longer a burden to my hardened exterior, no longer the cause of rocks to be thrown or my hair to be pulled.
Scrambling from the bed, I found my discarded trousers from last night and dug the letter she’d sent me from the pocket. It explained everything and caused my heart to ache with what was written in such a neat scribble, the truth among the colorful ramblings of her impassioned and fractured mind.
The corner had creased, folded into a dog-ear. I smoothed it out with the love I’d felt for her. A secret bond we had shared that no one else could understand. I needed her as much as she needed me, and now she was gone. All that was left was a folded piece of paper with words I’d memorized and the derelict walls of our abandoned home.
I had promised that page when the words were still in their infancy and the paper fresh from the original folds that I’d return and restore this home to how she remembered it.
With care, I folded the page and placed it in the top drawer of the dresser still in the room—a drawer half-filled with clothes I’d left behind and long grown out of.
I would unpack and deal with the other things later.
* * *
The morning was spent cleaning mold and mildew from the bathroom, scouring away the years of neglect, and polishing the fittings. If I wanted to soak my aches away in the indulgence of the antique claw-foot bath, I needed to know it was as close to sparkling clean as possible.
My nostrils filled with the stench of the bleach, my hands were red from scrubbing, and sweat beaded on my brow as the day grew hotter. The air was stifling and still, and I missed the luxury of simple things like air conditioning. Instead, the only option was to open the doors and let in whatever flying insects felt welcomed.
Smears of dirt encouraged my mounting frustrations until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I needed a break, a moment to calm my fraying nerves.
* * *
After grabbing my phone from its cradle and the charger, I plugged them both in, then waited for the battery to fill enough to use my phone. Dread filled my stomach when it pinged, and missed calls and messages lit it up like it was on fire.
I’d left the city without an explanation. I had been vague on purpose, keeping the details of my old life hidden as much as possible, along with my future plans.
I had reinvented myself for the world I now lived in, and no one knew who I used to be. To them, I wasn’t the daughter of a crazy murderer. I hadn’t grown up dirt poor, living off welfare and stale bread. I wasn’t the girl who wore clothes stolen from the donation bin or the lost and found at school. I was Alina Simpson, the girl who struggled in the city and fought to become someone the same as everyone else. The only thing that remained unchanged was my name.
I scrolled through the messages, choosing ones at random to read but replying to none. As far as anyone knew, I was taking a hiatus, with different versions being shared of what that involved with different people. Only Rita, my closest friend in the city, knew the real reason I’d left.
As close to the truth as I’d been willing to share, anyway.
I had come to get my mother’s estate in order and to attend her funeral—the same funeral that went unnoticed by the entire town of Beddington yesterday morning.
My mother was laid to rest in a regular pine box, dressed in her finest and most intricately detailed nightgown, which she’d never worn but carried in a special box wrapped in tissue paper. She was “saving it for a special occasion,” she’d once told me.
