Come Home

“I Visit Home” (Ch 15)

Chapter Fifteen


“I Visit Home”


         Years had passed, and I decided to go and find my father. I still lived in mammal's house with my mother, Sis, and Less. Rose had long been married. She left home about three years ago. Sis takes care of Mom, Less starts high school, and I am working on publishing a book. Something was missing. I wanted to see my father.


         I drove up the hill to what used to be my neighbor's house. One of the brothers had died, but I did stay to chit chat. I parked my Sunbird, and began the walk down the long hill toward the old house I once called home. When I had got to the decline, I felt a curiosity swell inside me. I turned left. There I found the secret opening to the Preston Grave yard.


         I walk past the angel. The grounds were still as beautiful as it always was. I walk to the stone that had Sara Preston carved into it. “It has been a long time.” I say knowing that there would be no answer. “Have you kept Dad company all these years?” I look at the graves of the children. How terrible it must be to be separated from your children forever. I was writing this book about Sara. I was writing about what little I knew about the story, and making up the rest to fill in the information that I did not know.


         I leave the Preston family's resting place. The road is covered with weeds leaving only rutted tire tracks from long ago. Every now and then I would see a Copperhead or rabbit scurry across my path. My favorite flowers lined the sides of the road. They had not grown there before, but they did create a nice scenery for my twenty minute walk.


         There was no path cut to the house from the road. It didn't look as if Dad even lived here any more. However, I still pushed through the over growth to where I thought the should be. I could only see the roof from the road. I feel the glass door knob. I turn it to open it.


         I was expecting the house to be vacant. The living room was dusty. The pot-bellied stove was still in the center of the room. The floor was warn and disappointing. I could hear rodents in the walls. I can see them peeking from under the old couch. The kitchen was closed off. For some reason there were boards across the door. I think that I would check that out later. I go about checking out the rest of the house. Something draws me to the room where my parents used to share a bed. It was cooler than the other rooms. The window where I had met Sara so many years ago was uncovered. It was covered with the words, “Come Home!” and “Bring them back!” The extra words were a surprise to me. I did know who “them” were. The house had wanted us to come home. I walk over to the bed where I could slightly see a figure laying on the bed motionless.


         My heart beat in quick beats as I got closer. I could smell the dust of the house and body odor. I was afraid that I had found my father too late. I walk closer.


         “Daddy!”


         There was no movement or sound coming from the bed. I reach out and touch what I hoped to be a living breathing older man that I had called Dad for so long. “ Dad          , is that you.” I ask as gently shaking of his sholder.


         “Matilda.” He speaks with a weakness that was weak.


         “Yea, Dad.” I reply. “How have you been?”


         He turns over. I am not sure that he truly recognized me. “Where is your mother?” He asks as he lights the lamp by the bed.


         “She is at home.” I can see the disappointment on the hollow hungry face of the man who professes to be 'Bad John'. “You are all grown up. Do you have a family of your own?” He asks. I felt that this was a question was would be normal for a father who has not see his child for nearly fifteen years to ask.


         “Not yet, Dad.” I answered.


         “Have you come home  to stay?” Dad asks as he pets something that I could not see. What was did Dad see that I did not?


         “I figured that you girls would have come to visit ole Blunder here years ago.” I knew that Blunder should have been sleeping beneath the ground long ago from old age. It makes since that Blunder would be living there with all the other.


         I did not like the feeling that I had standing in the house we had left to feel safe. I wanted to be any where except here. I decide to be uncomfortable feeling for the rest of the night. I dismiss myself to go out in the over-grown yard to call home. Dad goes to the box where he had a few loaves of bread that the neighbor had brought him with a few cans of beans. He opens one.


         My phone had no reception from this house. This did not surprise me. Nothing could be here that the house did not approve to be on the property.


Mom is used to me being out on book signings, she should not have worried. I just wished I had told someone where I had planned to go. No one knows where to find me.


         I walk back into the house. Dad had two cans of pinto beans open. I sat down beside him on what used to be our couch. He hands me two slices of bread with a salt shaker. “I am sorry that I don't have better.” He says ashamed.


         “That's OK Dad.” I answer trying no to be rude. I never liked pinto beans. When that was all that we had to eat for a while, I always raked off my plate through the open window for Blunder.


         I take a corner of my bread and dunk it into the can. “Dad, how long has it been since you have been out of this house.”


         He looks at me, and I can tell that he really had lost track of the time since I had left. It is hard to swallow the bread, not because of the bean soup, but because of the smell of the house. The strong sent of urine filled the room. I looked around the room in the dim light of the flickering lamp. I saw bottles around the room. Some were from soda, others were from condiments, and the worst were the larger milk containers. I gag a little. Some home I was able to mask it as a cough.


         Dad did not have but one lamp. I caught a glimpse that I was familiar with. I found two of the candles that my sisters and I had made. I picked them up. Dad lit them with a paper set on fire by the lamp flame. I walked toward my old bedroom.


         There were the three beds. I went to where I used to sleep. The same blankets were there that had used to cover me as a child. I pull them back. The dust flies through the air. I cough. How am I going to sleep in this place that smells of so many unpleasant odors.


         I lay down on the bed looking through the open door seeing Dad sleeping in his bed. He slept motionless. Past the bed I see Sara sitting in the window. She doesn't seem to care or know that I am in the house. She just looks out waiting for help as she had done since I had first seen her.


         The night was uneven table until around three o'clock . Dad got up. He walked to the kitchen door. He pulled the boards from the frame. One board at a time was being removed. I jumped from bed. Dad didn't notice or care that I was behind him.


         The room was bright. With no electricity why was the room lit up at three thirty in the morning. By the counter, I can see a shadow moving. There were no words spoken between my father or the other being. He walked past the other, and removed something from under the neglected sink. The as Dad walks out of the room, it grows dark again. He hammers the nails back into the boards that kept the kitchen hidden from view.


         Being afraid that Dad would see me. I tiptoe to my bed while he is working ceiling the door. What was he doing? I remember that he used to keep his tools there so that Less would not play with them. I tried to keep my eyes open, but I was as sleepy as when Grandmother made us that tea. I just had to get some sleep. So I closed my eyes.


         I wake up in the morning feeling strangely like I had never grown up. It took me a few moments to realize where I was. I make my bed back then walk to the door. I don't remember it being closed last night. I turn the knob. It didn't open.


         What was wrong? It just must have been stuck. I go and pull at the windows they were swollen shut. There was not a way out. I look around the room to find something to break the window glass. I find my brother's old helmet that he liked to wear when he pretended to be a race car driver. I hit it over and over. Nothing happened.


         “Dad!” I am nearly screaming. “DAAAAAD!” There was still no answer. I turn to scan the room for something that might help. Something that pry the door or windows open. I didn't find anything. I began to panic.


         I slammed my weight the door. It did not budge. Again and again I beat my left shoulder into the solid door. “Ada,” I stop. I know that name. The fear grows stronger. “Ada!” The voice yelled. I looked around. I could not see anyone. “Ada!!! Stop it!”


         I know that I hear a voice. I finally realize who was calling the name, a name that I had heard before. I shout, “Sara.” I bang my body against the wall again. No one answered. “Sara, Let me out!” Still no reply.


         I am beyond the brink of my sanity. I fall to the ground with my back against the door. “Mommy,” I speak as if I expect her to help me from where she was. “Help me.” I whisper a cry.


         The swings open. There with her ghostly hand still on the door stood Sara. “It will be OK. Ada,” She says holding her arms out to me. “You are home now.”


         I am stunned to see her there, but I am go running past her. I am in my car in my neighbor's yard  before I see Dad. He was walking up the hill behind me. He begins to run to the car. I try to start the car, but the engine will not turn over. One try. Two tries. The third time the motor begins to run. I roll down the window. “Where are you going?” Dad asks.


         “Dad, I am going to g-go home.” I looked at my dad's face. It was getting to look more like a wild animal's face. His eyes savage. He tried to speak with a civilized tone. He smiled, but however the smile was more of a snarl trying to disguise its self as a smile that a loving father would give his daughter. “You are home.”


         “I am not staying  her. Daddy, come with me!” I pleaded to him. I could see that he wanted to open my door. I brought my foot off the brake. The car began to roll. He reaches into the window, and tries to bring me out of it. I push the gas. I drive away watching my father's image get smaller until I was too far away to see him any longer. I then pulled off the road to regain my composure.


         My words are ways to leave peices of myself behind for my children.

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