The woman who answered the door led me inside. A small boy with mussed blond hair hid behind her leg. I waved to him.
You used to live here? he asked.
I did, I said, leaning down to smile at him.
They’d replaced the pantry doors with white paneling; tick marks relayed the ages and heights of their children. I looked into the connected living room and saw a teenager—probably about the age I was when I moved, I thought—watching football.
She used to live here, the little boy said, pointing to me. The teen raised a limp hand, eyes staying on the TV.
The kid and I went upstairs together.
This is mine, the boy declared, bursting into my little brother’s room. I told the new little brother this and he smiled, leaping up on his bed and jumping a few times.
And then we were in my room—where I hid in the closet on my last night, trying to catch my breath through the panic, my whole body alive with it.
Do you like it here? I asked the little boy now.
He nodded. It’s my home, he said.
~
How strange it was to be in that place as the person I am now—someone who can’t remember trusting circumstances not to change.
When I talk this way—about the convergence of new selves with old places—my boyfriend laughs and says that’s just how time works. In a way he’s right, but he was also born in the same New York apartment where his parents still live. He can tell me how his childhood room looked at five, fifteen, and twenty-one. His self might as well be a long, uncut piece of string.
Of course I grew to love our house in Washington: practicing my volleyball footwork in the upstairs hallway; my sixteenth birthday, when I’d finally made enough friends to throw a party; the first time I saw snow; the garden my father planted, ripped out, planted, ripped out, never satisfied; the wax stain outside my bedroom door from the time he asked me not to carry around the candles during a power outage and I did anyway.
And then—my parents sold it, only to move down the street. I didn’t go with them. Instead, I reduced my childhood belongings to five plastic bins, donated the rest, and moved to New York.
Recently they told me they’re leaving again, this time for Arizona.
If I ever have my own garage, and swallows come to nest there, I’ll bring them toast crusts and discarded broccoli stalks. I’ll sing to them at night, say good morning on my way to work. You can always come home, I’ll tell them.
|