Enjoy!
She got off the bus and walked down the same main road as in her childhood days. Mason's hardware store, Jerry's ice-cream parlor, Tracy's film lab and Diane's Diner, then she took a left turn and kept walking by some houses and then a field, which seemed so endless you always thought you must have missed No. 35, when really it stood obstructed from view behind some massive oak trees right after passing the field. The dove blue paint was flaking off even more than last time and the two steps up the front porch didn't seem any trustworthier than before. The feeling of apprehension had settled in her chest and she found it hard to breathe. She couldn't stand the overpowering smell of flax from the field and the musky scent from the decaying oak trees. She hadn't even gone inside yet and already she felt like throwing up and then running away faster than she had ever run in her life, even faster than she ran after the truck her dad had left in. But life hadn't ever really given her choices, so she exhaled and opened the door. It squeaked like it had always done. Every little thing that hadn't changed exposed another part of the wounds she had worked so hard to cover up. She exhaled again and remembered that this place was responsible for her developing the habit.
The house was as quiet as ever, seemed to swallow every sound a person could make, when sometimes she felt the sounds were the only thing to prove she was still alive. Then she listened to her heartbeat or her shallow breath in the dark of the night. But here all the sound was removed from the world. She had wanted to scream out at the top of her lungs living here every day, to bring the house back to life, to wake up the people who lived in it, to lift the dust off the pictures on the wall, but the scream had always got stuck in her throat and an exhale was all that made it out. The pictures on the wall in the hallway proved the house had seen days of a child laughing and screaming in it. The oak trees once were embraced by small children feet climbing them. But the pictures stopped around the time Julie had turned 13 and the house went into silent mourning over the lost happiness and innocence.
She found her mother sitting at the kitchen table, wrapped in a crochet blanket, drinking tea and looking tired.
"Hey, Mom!" Julie greeted her and gave her a careful hug.
"Hi, baby!" her mom answered and smiled widely. "I heard you coming down the path."
Julie doubted she really had, the path was long and far from the house, but in the silence here one heard many things one wanted to hear.
"I brought you the almond cake you like so much," Julie said and placed the package on the table. "Do you want a piece?" She moved over to the drawer that had held the cutlery ever since she could remember and took out a knife to cut the cake with and for a split second wondered if it hurt to cut your wrist.
"Just a small one. I'm not supposed to eat too much sugar," her mom said, but the glow in her eyes gave away how much she looked forward to the taste.
"Where's Terry?" Julie asked while cutting several small pieces from the famous almond cake from "Antonio's".
"He's picking up the truck from Eton's. It was broken, but Eton said he'd fix it for one of Terry's wood carvings. Said he always wanted one of those."
Among the pictures of happier days in the hallway hung several wood carvings of deer, ducks, horses, eagles and bears. Terry made these from any piece of fine wood he could find. Julie abhorred them.
"How is Eton? He must be almost eighty now, can't believe he still fixes cars," Julie said, trying to push Terry out of her mind at least a little while longer.
"He's healthier than I am," her mom joked dryly and received an unamused look from Julie. "Did you bring your articles for me?" she tried to cover up.
"Yeah. It's not that many this time, I was needed at the restaurant," Julie reported a little ashamed and pulled out some magazines from her bag, marked with yellow post-its.
...
