Mother's House

Mother’s House

Jared looked at the wall again. The paint had peeled on that wall for as long as he could remember. It was an irritant then, but now the realtor said it could adversely affect the sale price. It would make a big difference if he got it fixed before the listing. Figuring he could do it himself, install insulation or something, he prepared to finally find out why the darn paint always peeled.

His mother blamed it on something her parents did, or didn’t do? He’d forgotten the story. He’d never met his grandparents; they disappeared on a road trip before he was born. They never even found their car. His parents were already living here, and his mother inherited the house officially after the seven-year waiting period.

After his father left, while Jared was away in college, Jared tried to get his mother to move, but she stubbornly stayed. She said it was her house and she wasn’t about to give it up because she’d married a jerk. They didn’t talk much about Dad after that, and since his father never tried to contact him, Jared decided he really was a jerk.

Now that Mom was gone, Jared certainly did not want Mother’s house. Too much bad karma! He picked up the sledge hammer. He couldn’t fix the problem until he found out what was causing it. The wall had to come down.

Ten minutes later, as he looked through the hole he’d made, he knew what the problem was. Unfortunately, it was going to be a bit harder to fix than he’d thought. Behind the wall was a narrow room, and leaning up against the wall were three bodies. One was definitely his father, and at this point, he assumed the other two were his grandparents.