After my sister, niece, and I finished emptying out and cleaning Mom’s house and its
accompanying barn, after it was put on the market, after we received a cash offer within days
with the closing only one month out, after all that, whenever I went to check on the house, when I unlocked the back door and walked empty room by empty room, I always felt that my mother was still there.

So while our real estate agent completed his final list for selling a house, dotting his i’s and
crossing his t’s, I decided that I needed to make one more visit, a last visit, a final visit and,
after that, I would not step foot in her house again.

Early June 2022.

Of all her property, just a small table with its four chairs, remains in the kitchen. So, on that
last morning, I took one of the chairs and carried it into the front bedroom. This had been my
mother’s bedroom. This was where, in her own bed, she had died with my sister, niece, and I
surrounding her.

Unlike when she was alive, when no matter how hard we scrubbed the room it always stank
of urine and disinfectant, now it smelled fresh and clean with a scent of lemon. I surveyed its
polished, shiny wood floor. Of course, everything was gone. I put the chair down where my
mother’s head would have rested if she was lying in her bed. Then I opened wide, despite the
cool morning, the two floor-to-ceiling windows. I sat down on the chair and spoke aloud…to my mother.

“Mom,” I said. “First, I want to say that I miss you very much and that I’m sorry for the
times I failed you these last few years. I know you know that I did the best I could with
whatever talent I had—which basically came out of the love I felt, still feel, for you, and despite
all my limitations.” I paused. Since this would be my last visit, I wanted to get it right.

“Mom, I want you to be at peace, so I want you to know that everything will be all right here.
I’ll be okay and I truly believe that I will see you again. So, leave, Mom. Leave, Mom,” and I
waved her toward the windows.

I said nothing more, but sat for an hour? two hours? and watched her and myself as I ran all those tapes in my head of our life together from when I was a small child…to this very day.

I got up. “Goodbye, Mom.” I closed and locked the windows. But, truth be told, I wasn’t
sure if Mom had departed. I carried the chair back to the kitchen and left. For good.

Then, as our agent was finishing up for the closing, the building inspector dropped a
bombshell: forty-five years ago, when Dad built the house, he never pulled a permit to build the in-law apartment in the basement. Everything needed to be ripped out down to the studs, so he could inspect the plumbing and electrical work. And, if we wanted to count the third bedroom, the one in basement, we needed to have an egress window installed just in case the fire department ever needed access.

My sister and I decided that the finished basement should be rebuilt, back to its original footprint, after the building inspector was done with his inspection. The buyers backed out and I didn’t blame them. Who knows what would be found when the walls were taken down? Their $15,000. deposit was returned. The house was taken off the market. I hired a contractor and waited for the inspections and construction and…

January 2023.

Finally, back on the market, the house again sells within days, but this time for less money.
No longer is it a seller’s market and buyers must deal with higher interest rates. But still,
these new people really want this house. Me, since that day last June, I have not stepped back
into the house. My husband, William, graciously volunteered to occasionally check on everything there for me.

The inspection is scheduled and, once again, our realtor begins to go through his final
checklist for a new closing, this one at the end of March. He accompanies the inspector and the
potential buyers for the inspection. I now say “potential” because I am hesitant to believe in any finality to a sale until it happens. Days later, the inspector presents a hundred page report that includes “low water pressure” from the house’s well. These new buyers get spooked and back out. Again, I don’t blame them.

A week later, William checks on the house, and returns to our home to tell me, “Low water
pressure, hell, no. There’s no water pressure, absolutely no water is coming into the house.”

I cannot sell a house that has no water.

That night, I awake at one o’clock in the morning and pray to Mom, “Mom, if you are blocking the
sale of the house, please, just let it go. Please, Mom, please. I do not feel all that healthy and I
don’t think I can be healthy again until the house is gone. Please, Mom.”

I lie in bed. Within minutes I hear a cat howling just below our bedroom window. I stay in
bed and listen until the cat is silent.

The following day, I tell no one what I heard. The following day, I tell no one what I believe.

The next night, again, I awake at one. Again I pray to, and petition, my mother. “Please,
Mom,” and, again, within minutes, I hear a cat howling below the same window.

Now I must confess, I feel a bit frightened, so I just lie there, but the howling isn’t stopping. I
get up, open the shutters that cover our windows, and look down. The cat, a solid-gray one,
stares up at me, lets out one more howl, turns, walks across our lawn, and crosses the street. I
watch the cat run up my neighbor’s driveway and disappear into the woods.

Nine o’clock in the morning the telephone rings. It is our agent who says, “You’re not going to
believe this, but I went to the house to fix the sign and decided on a fluke to check the water and guess what? It came pouring out of every faucet.”

Now I tell William of the last two nights and my prayers to Mom and the cat and the howling.

Now I tell William of how, “I think it was Mom.”

He says, not really believing me, but not really disbelieving me, “Let’s see if it comes back
again.”

I say, “It won’t.”

Now two weeks later, she hasn’t.

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