By Patti Santucci
I followed the agent up the walk. Sell it, everyone had said.
The reflection on the Open House sign made it hard to read. Our house stared back at me, blinds hanging like eyelids half-open, begging to be closed against the rest of the world. Go away, they seemed to whisper.
Someone had mowed the lawn, planted gardenia bushes, new buds sprouting spitefully from their branches. The agent input the lockbox code and smiled as if to suggest new beginnings could simply be found with the right combination. The door yawned wide and I stepped inside, our heels echoing against a hardwood floor polished with the high sheen of caskets.
Nothing looked like I had left it. An afghan was folded too neatly over the edge of the rocking chair. Magazines were fanned and untouched. The room smelled of chocolate chip cookies and lemon wax. It was as if an undertaker had come through, erasing the damage, making it all look pretty for the viewing.
The kitchen counter gleamed empty, save a bronze Vintner wine opener hovering over a bottle of Cab, a pile of blood-red grapes conspicuously placed on a dark walnut cutting board. Everything straining for sophistication. Even the cookies were stripped of their innocence, meticulously arranged to erase any lingering sense of childhood that might seep from the foundation.
I held my breath as we stepped down the hall, each creak in the floorboard a mournful whimper that knotted in the back of my throat. The heartbeat of the house escalated with mine as we got closer. The agent flipped on the switch in my old bedroom, the entire room seeming to shirk for a moment and withdraw like an exposed secret waiting for judgement. A wall clock ticked, a metronome of regrets, reminding me I would forever be too late.
I stood outside the threshold, my feet rooted to the floor. An arm found my shoulders. I shook the apparition of my chaplain away.
“I know,” the agent said. “It’s cold in here.” “Like a morgue,” I said, before walking away. I placed my hand on the doorknob of the second bedroom, caressing it like a newborn’s bald head. A bookcase and a small oak desk filled the room now, trying to mask the sorrow sobbing in the dark corners. A single breeze wafted through the window, weak and shallow, ruffling the curtains like a final breath.
The room had been painted over, diary secrets and girlfriend giggles bleeding through, coloring the walls various shades of memory and disbelief. The unopened package of medical tubing, the empty needle cover, the paramedic’s averted eyes, were all shadows now, swept beneath an IKEA floor rug. “How’s it look?” the agent asked, her eyes searching for approval.
“Like finality,” I said.
I stopped at the doorframe and traced my fingers over the notches that marked the molding and left before she could see me cry.