Home

Beautiful Annie's ancestral manse, The Little House,  has been sold. The view from the porch up through the trees, the view she shared with her parents and her friends and her self, that view is no longer hers to access.

She's bereft.

She's lost a physical link to her father, gone these many years. Imagining him in situ is easier than trying without the actual prompts.

I know this is true.  I've been doing it for years.

She won't open a closet and be hit by a familiar smell.  She won't listen to an errant latch clicking, or feel the key stick in the usual place, or turn and put her bag down in the exact same space.

Those are memories now, and memories they will always be. They won't be refreshed by newer images; their edges will be burnished with the gloss of remembrance.

The secret spot in the yard where she shared cigarettes with friends, the hook in the tree which held the hammock and its secrets... that is someone else's space now.

It doesn't feel right, but it is what it is.

The front porch where HE held her close, where she slammed the door in outrage, where the mailman brought college acceptance letters and postcards from far off relatives, where she stood and waited for carpools and deliveries and friends... someone else will be awaiting those arrivals, just as eagerly.

Someone else will learn about the narrow basement steps, moan about the lack of a bathroom on the first floor, struggle with the sticky bedroom window, marvel at the hand crafted cabinetry.  Perhaps an errant flower petal, dropped from a corsage hanging for decades in the back of a closet, will prompt a new resident to stop for a moment and wonder about the young girl in the yellow and white organza formal......

I know how she feels... been there... done that... missing it still.