You Can't Go Home Again

    'You can't go home again.' It's a saying I have heard since I was old enough to understand words.  I always disregarded it as trite, after all, it didn't pertain to me.  But now, here I am, standing on the front lawn of my old home hearing the words in the shadows of my mind. They rise and fall like a symphony.

      I look at the old house, green paint peeling.  It looks back at me, half in welcome, half in censure.  It never seemed to want me here when I was a child.  The windows are empty, echoing the void a house feels when it is deprived of life.  It looms above me, three stories high, observing me. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up...unsettling. 

      The snowball bushes my mother planted along the front, brick walk when I was six, are overgrown and block the walkway.  Large bumble bees land on the fat, white globes, making the branches dip.  My brother, sister and I picked up glass bottles out of ditches for two months straight, so that mom could have enough money to buy them.  We would come home, sunburned and bug bit, but it was worth it.  How she loved making things grow! 

      I walk around the side, following the red brick trail we laid so many years ago.  The plum tree, such a joy for us, is gone.  Nothing stands in its place.  I remember so well eating fresh plucked plums.  The sweet-sour taste of summer, warm and filling.  My sister and I would sit under that plum tree, talking of little girl things.  She would have a white stallion ranch and I would have black.  My heart longs to be that innocent again.

      The walnut tree is still in back, skirting the alley.  It has grown large and happy.  Green, unripe walnuts hang from the branches like Christmas balls.  I tried for years to build a treehouse for my brother in it, but it always spit the wood back at me in contempt.  It wanted no children to play there.  The lilac bush is just as I remember, a little larger but just as beautiful.  I wonder if the hollow place at its center is still there?  Was it waiting for a little girl to visit and tell all of her secrets? 

      I see all three of us in my minds eye.  My brother, my sister and me, playing in our backyard.  Tow heads and tanned skin.  We climbed like monkeys, ran like cheetahs and were as fragile as the tiniest hummingbirds.  My heart feels heavy and my throat grows tight, how bittersweet the memories.

      I look at the house and see the windows that sit over the kitchen.  My sister and I shared a bedroom there.  We would sit on the roof at night and watch the stars.  Sometimes after she had fallen asleep I would go out there by myself, stand on the edge and think about taking a giant leap.  Maybe I would suddenly fly away, free of everything.  Maybe I would crash to the ground and die, free of everything. 

      The wooden back door is warped.  Rain and time have twisted it into a poor imitation of its younger, sturdier self.  I have to push with my shoulder and lift up to get it open.  Cobwebs stretch across the opening like rubberbands, then give way when the tension becomes too much.  The hinges don't make much noise, only a soft groan.  They sound so tired. 

      I pause just inside the doorway and listen.  There is little wind outside, but I feel breezes softly blowing across my skin.  I hear crying, quiet, childlike.  My pulse begins to race.  I do not belong here anymore.  This house has seen too much, it knows all the dark, dirty little things that happened here.  Yes, there was joy.  Yes, there was love.  But underneath, waiting to find me alone was my father.

      Outside I was always free, I could be a just what I was, a little girl.  I could climb trees.  I could plant flowers.  I could hide in my lilac bush.  Inside I was what daddy made me.  I was pain.  I was sorrow.  I was used. 

      I turn and leave that house.  It couldn't protect me when I was young and it will not help me now that I am grown.  It can't help me, I own this pain. The old saying is wrong, you can go home again.  It just hurts too much to know that going home can't fix anything. 

      I walk to my car quickly, the feeling of pursuit hounding my steps.  I turn and take one last look at my childhood home.  I will hoard all the good things I recall, because there were so many things that were wonderful.  I will leave all the bad things inside of that house, I don't need them anymore.  There is nothing left for me here, except the memories of that little girl so long ago.

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