NaNoWriMo,
National Novel Writing Month started November 1st. The goal…to write
a novel in 30 days. It is now 10:59 pm on Tuesday and I have written almost
9000 words of my novel and zero for the blog. Oops.
My plan was to
write a few posts and schedule them so the pressure was off, but I didn’t quite
make it. So, at this late
hour I’m going to cheat, and give you a short story out of my vast array of
short stories. This is the story I submitted to the Toronto Star Short Story
Contest. Not a winner I’m sorry to say.
I’ll warn you in
advance, it’s long. Won’t leave it to the last minute next time.
Coming Home
Who was it said
you could never go home again, she wondered as she took the exit ramp off the
highway. It would have been nice if it had been her idea and not something
forced on her in response to an ultimatum.
As she’d avoided
this trip for the last fourteen years, it was a sure bet she wouldn’t be here
if she’d had any other choice. Well, she was back now, and if she couldn’t lay
all her childhood ghosts to rest this time, she would be haunted by them
forever.
Turning in the
direction of town, she drove right on past the street she was looking for with
a quick and fearful glance. Not quite ready to face her demons, she followed
the signs that directed her to the town’s downtown business section.
The stately old
houses she passed were familiar, and the main street looked the same, and yet
different. The old style store fronts with their second and third floor
apartments lined and defined the downtown core. It was the stores that had
changed, there were new signs, new businesses, and tucked here and there were
the tried and true shops she remembered; the bakery, the bank, the smoke shop.
She drove on
through the four corners and turned back, toward the old house, back to where
it all began.
As she turned down
the road she’d bypassed before, she was surprised to see the old house looking
so abandoned, showing the signs of age and neglect. The house stood, fighting
the ravages of time, while the neighbourhood had moved on, changing to meet the
needs of the town. The other homes on the street had been razed in the name of
progress, and in their place was a strip mall, a gas station and a school.
She turned into
the school driveway and parked. Across the street, sitting with an eerie
emptiness, was her house, the one she’d grown up in, the one she’d inherited,
and the one she’d been afraid to claim.
The ultimatums had
come from two directions.
First, the town
wanted their money, their due, in the form of annual property taxes, and the
bank had informed her that the payment was overdue and there were no more funds
to pay.
The other
ultimatum had been delivered by her husband of seven years. His reason for an
ultimatum, ultimately, led back to this house, she thought. For what happened
all those years ago still had a grip on her, filled her with anger, with fear
and with grief.
The house had
never been pretty, not with the green clapboard on the second floor and the
horrible insul brick on the lower level. The windows were boarded up, the
plywood weathered grey, and there were black patches evident where the
shingle-like insul brick had been lost.
With the yard full
of knee high weeds, the out buildings falling down in pieces, the house was an
ugly reminder of the ugliness of her childhood.
There had been
some good years, she supposed, before the drinking changed everything. Her
father had always enjoyed a beer after work, then one beer became more and not
just after work. The long liquid lunches had affected his work, and he’d lost
his job, and every job that came after.
She got out of the
car, pulled her coat tight, though the shiver she felt was not from the cold,
and crossed the street. There was no path as there had once been, leading to
the front door. The house stood, isolated, in a sea of brush that formed a
barrier to keep trespassers from the door.
She had no
intention of entering, the door could remain closed on the echoes of her past,
yet it didn’t matter, those echoes were with her always, in the memories that
haunted her.
She’d spent most
of her childhood avoiding her father. She learned how to gauge his mood by the
number of empties strewn across the living room floor, but avoidance wasn’t
always possible.
At first the abuse
was verbal. Angry rantings when her father would use words to hurt his wife and
daughter; use words to lash out at what he perceived to be their inadequacies,
rather than face his own.
She was twelve the
first time he struck her, a vicious backhand across the face that sent her
sprawling to the floor. The shock of it, the pain, the shame, were
overwhelming…and so the circle of lies began. He was a mean drunk, but he
wasn’t a stupid one. He never hit her in the face again; it was too visible and
encouraged comment and speculation.
The house rule,
what happened at home was family business, and was not to be discussed with any
outsider. So she’d lied, and her mother lied, they all lied to keep the
violence a secret.
She made her way
through the brush to the window, stumbling when her foot caught in a tangle of
weeds, catching herself and scraping her hand on the rough exterior. The
windows were covered over, hiding an interior that was dark and empty. But it
didn’t matter, there was nothing to see, the evidence was long gone.
A sob escaped,
suddenly and without warning. How could she have known, she asked herself, that
his abuse would take such a violent turn?
She made her way
around the side of the house, struggling to walk, the tears running down her
cheeks unchecked. The grief she’d held in for years suddenly hit her like it
was yesterday, instead of fourteen years ago.
The day she turned
eighteen, she’d left this house, to escape the anger, the abuse, the battery.
She always wondered why her father hated her, for she could find no other
reason for his horrible treatment of her. He’d never struck her mother, though
she’d not always avoided his angry attention.
It had been crazy,
she knew, to think if she was gone from the house, the abuse would end. What it
did, was escalate. Unable to hold down a job, angry all the time, drunk more
than he was sober, her father had lost one target for his rage, and found
another, her mother.
They couldn’t find
her at first; after all, what was the point of running away if those you were
running from knew where you were? But find her they did. Not her parents, but
the police, when they informed her that her parents were dead, the result of an
apparent murder/ suicide.
She had never been
able to forgive herself, thinking her mother’s death was her fault. The last
time she was in town she’d buried her parents, with no ceremony, no visitation
and no funeral. There were no friends, no family to consider, and she’d wanted
it over and done, and did it quietly, secretively.
When the lawyer
told her she inherited the house and money from an insurance policy, she
couldn’t touch it, for it was blood money in her mind. So the money had paid
the taxes, and the house had stood, a monument to death and disaster, until
now. The money was gone, the taxes overdue, and she had to decide what to do.
“What are you
going to do?” her husband had asked her last week. She’d accused him of having
an affair, a cliché seven year itch thing, and he’d laughed. Laughed, she
remembered, with a sad and resigned look on his face.
He’d denied it of
course, said she was the one who’d shown no commitment to their marriage. From
the beginning, he said, she’d had one foot out the door, ready to leave at a
moment’s notice.
And she supposed
he was right. She’d been afraid to trust, had waited for that first strike, and
this time, when it happened, she’d be ready to run. She had no intention of
living through that hell again.
When her husband
found the letter from the lawyer he’d discovered one of her secrets. Why was he
so angry, she wondered, that was how families worked wasn’t it, they kept
secrets?
When they married,
she’d been ashamed of her family and told him her parents died in an accident.
She had kept the house a secret, just as the house had kept all of her family’s
secrets. Now her husband wanted to know why a lawyer was writing to her, and
she’d broken down and told him the truth. It was a novel experience, to shed
the burden of secrets and lies.
At the back of the
house there was a makeshift mud room, pieced together by her father to shelter
the door from the wind and cold. She gave it a push and felt a sense of
satisfaction on hearing the groan of wood on wood, and stepped back to watch
the structure fall, in slow motion, in on itself with a bang.
She looked quickly
to the gas station next door, wondering if anyone was watching, if the noise
had drawn any attention. But no one noticed. It was late in the day and the sun
to the west had turned the sky to a blend of blue and gold. She’d lose the
light soon and wanted to be away, far away from this house before dark.
Groping her way
past the remnants of the shed, she stepped carefully. Her foot hit something
where the shed joined the house and she saw a hint of colour, of silver and
red.
The memory hit
her, and kneeling, she pushed and shoved with her bare hands until she had what
she was after. It was an old metal cookie tin, with an embossed Christmas
design on the lid. It had some rust, but was in fairly good condition. It had
been protected from the elements in a hole in the shed wall.
This was her time
capsule, filled with keepsakes from her childhood.
She hugged it
close and ran. Tripping and stumbling, she reached the curb and ran on, without
looking or thinking of the risks, across the street and fumbled her way into
her car.
She held on to the
tin like it was found treasure. It was filled with items of no value, but they
were invaluable to her, collected and stashed away…in secret. The tension eased
from her body and she laughed; an easy heartfelt laugh that gave her hope.
She looked beyond
the house to where the road ended. A solitary house on a dead end street was
made for secrets, she thought. The guard rail was still in place, a warning
that there was nowhere else to go, that it was a road to nowhere.
She’d seen that
barrier everyday from her bedroom window, and thought it mirrored her life,
until she’d finally found the courage to leave.
A car pulled out
by the guard rail and came toward her from the end of the road. She slipped out
of the car and walked to the end of the parking lot. She’d missed it before,
all her attention had been directed to the house. The road continued to the
right, past the front of the school and on into a subdivision she hadn’t known
existed.
She stood on the
sidewalk and had an epiphany of thought. What she thought was a dead end,
didn’t have to stay a dead end. Things could change, things could be different.
As she turned back
to her car she saw the silhouette of the house, a dark shadow against a sky
painted in a glorious blaze of colour, and realized what her answer to all the
ultimatums was going to be.
She didn’t want to
live her life feeling trapped on a dead end road. She wanted to take a new road
and see where it would take her, with no more secrets and no more lies.
If she had stayed
all those years ago, would her mother have lived? Maybe…or maybe they would
both be dead, victims of her father’s rage. She would never know for sure, and
that was something she would learn to live with.
As she made her
way back to the car she remembered an old argument with her husband, when he’d
said she had ‘issues’ and needed help, professional help. She’d scoffed and
retaliated, in her own defence. But he’d been right, she realized now, she
needed help. All the feelings and emotions she’d kept bottled up for years were
about to overflow, and she’d need help to survive the flood.
Tomorrow, she’d
call the lawyer, make arrangements to cover the tax bill and, finally, let it
go, put the land up for sale. She didn’t need the house any longer. She’d done
her penance and punished herself enough.
And that other
ultimatum?
He’d asked what
she was going to do, forcing her to make a decision. Go or stay, he’d said, but
if she stayed things had to be different. Well, so be it. She dug her phone out
of her purse and began to text. She was avoiding a conversation, she knew, but
she needed a bit of time, and some distance from the past first.
She quickly sent
the message. I’m on my way home. You were
right all along. LOL It was good I came back, please be there so we can talk,
really talk. Love you.
She looked over,
saw the cookie tin on the passenger seat, and smiled. She wouldn’t open it
until she was home, and she wouldn’t open it alone. This piece of her childhood
was worth keeping, and worth sharing.
And when she
opened it, she knew she would be opening more than just a cookie tin, she’d be
opening her heart and mind, getting rid of all the shadows and secrets that had
kept her closed off and isolated.
Go or stay, she
chose stay. Suddenly she had a new direction to go, and she was anxious to see
where it would take her.
I've had a rough six months, and feel good to have completed this challenge. Though I may have felt beaten down at times, (chronic pain will do that to you), I stuck with it and saw it through.
