Growing up, we had two rules:
We pulled into the driveway around 5:30 pm. It is a long gravel path, now overgrown, just far enough from the two-lane county road to be entirely hidden by the oaks that lined the property. I’d forgotten the rumble of tires over rocks and was surprised by how much that feeling reminded me of home.
Just beyond the trees, I see it for the first time in twenty years. My childhood home is a two-story colonial with a big wrap-around porch and a grand double-door entrance. In my memory, the house was a glossy white that would reflect the sun so brightly you could see it through the trees from the road. It looked diminished now in the evening light. Perhaps it is natural for houses to turn grey and wither when left alone. People do the same.
Nadine put the car in park but left the engine running. Then her hand was on mine. “Just say the word, and we’ll go,” she promised, and I knew she meant it. I felt so small for wanting to take her up on it. But I shook my head and looked at her, and before I could say anything, she kissed me, deep and long. The fear washed away and did not return.
“I believe you,” she said. “Do what you need to do to say goodbye. I’ll be right outside.”
If there’s a word for the kind of love you feel when your partner steps out of their comfort zone to support you, I don’t know what it is. It made me feel brave, though, and that’s what I needed tonight.
I unzipped the backpack in my lap and pulled out two plastic egg timers. My watch told me it was twenty minutes until sunset. I set the timers, gave one to Nadine, and put the other in my bag.
“If I’m not back when this goes off, call my phone. Do not come inside under any circumstances. I love you.”
“Love you too,” she said, and then she pew pewed me with finger guns, and the cuteness of that made me laugh.
“Twenty minutes,” I promised. Then I scooped up my backpack and half-jogged to the house.
I was nine when my mom remarried. Up to that point, it was just the two of us, and we’d always rented an apartment near Mom’s work. So I was excited to have a proper Dad (finally) and to move into a great big house with so much land.
The sellers were an old southern couple who’d outlived the need for so big a house. They made Mom and Dad uneasy, though. They stipulated in the sale that we all had to meet with them and promise to follow two rules:
Our realtor suggested that we play along for the sake of the sale, so we did. We smiled politely and promised to follow the rules. I wish we’d asked more questions, though. If we had, Mom might still be alive.
I stepped into a shallow foyer and closed the door. It was dark, but enough light came through the windows to show me dust-covered picture frames - our family of three, forgotten in time. I kept my eyes on the floor and waited by the foyer table.
You hear them first.
They flutter toward you like moths to a flame, and you must remember not to panic or scream. That only makes it worse. Just keep your head down and wait for the instructions.
The notecard slid into view:
Keep your eyes down
Stay out of the kitchen
Do not make a sound
PS: Follow me. She is upstairs.
Then it took me by the hand and led me into the house. Its hand was cold. Curiosity got the better of me, and I peeked at its face: raven black curls framed a stern looking middle-aged woman. She squeezed my hand so hard that my knuckles popped, and with her other hand, she held up a single finger. Got it. I kept my eyes down.
My guide led me upstairs to Mom’s sewing room. That’s where I found her body. She was still wearing her blue dress with yellow sunflowers and a single shoe. All that remained in those old clothes was a bright, white skeleton. It almost looked like a Halloween decoration, if perhaps too real.
I put the egg timer on the floor nearby: ten minutes. Then I got to work. I dumped the contents of my backpack so that I’d have somewhere to put Mom. The little cylinders inside fell at my feet and rolled around on the floor. Then I reverently gathered my mother’s skeleton into my bag.
Something shuts off in your brain when you have to do something like that. You don’t think about the details of which bone you’re touching or who it belonged to. I had to pry a piece of charred firewood out of her right hand. Looks like we came to the same conclusion, Mom. I’m nearly finished when I hear Nadine’s voice downstairs.
“You have to leave now,” I yell.
“My timer went off,” she called back. “Like, five minutes ago. I have been calling you nonstop.”
There’s a reason we always followed the rules.
Topsy had the body of a person, but with too-long arms and great claws that scratched the old wooden floors when it prowled the upstairs rooms. Its skin was yellow brown like cigarette-stained paper. And its face was upside down. That’s why I gave it that name all those years ago. All that was left of my egg timer fell from Topsy’s hand and landed with an offkey “ding.” Still crouched near the place I had gathered Mom, I grabbed one of the cylinders by my feet and slowly unscrewed its cap.
I spent the last twenty years trying to make sense of this place. I made lists for everything and followed rules obsessively. But there’s no therapy for downstairs ghosts and upstairs ghouls. There’s no treatment for a monster putting mommy in the fireplace.
One night Nadine gently suggested that conquering my fears would help me move on. But fear is not an enemy to be defeated or a mountain to be climbed. Fear is a house. In my house, there are things dark and scary and unexplainable. Drinking myself senseless did not work. Therapy did not work. Even finding love, real love, did not work. Those things cannot hurt a house made out of wood and stone and ghosts and Topsy.
No, for this house, only fire works.
I pulled the string on the cylinder in my hand. The flare burst to life, and Topsy screamed and recoiled. I popped another flare and another until it was surrounded. The room was well aflame by the time I left the house.
Nadine and I stood in the tall grass of the front yard and watched the fire spread. We did not leave until the house collapsed in smoke and burning embers. I refused to move until I could no longer hear Topsy’s screams.
We buried Mom on a hill about a mile from the ruined house the next morning. I said a few words and marked the grave with sunflowers. Nadine cried, and I felt like I should have, but I did not feel sad. I felt relieved. It was finally over.
We got back to the car a little after noon. It was my turn to drive. I made a u-turn in the yard and headed back up the gravel driveway. I couldn’t resist one last look at the smoking ruins in the rear view mirror. My eyes stayed on it until it was no longer visible through the trees, and then I turned onto the paved road and headed home.
I pretended not to hear the distant wailing cry. So did Nadine.