I watched the gentle rain patter lightly on the windowpane against which I had been resting my head. Each drop slowly flowed down the pane, coalescing into larger pearls, which proceeded to fall in turn to collide with other translucent pearls. The coolness of the glass had eased the heat, which was on the precipice of overtaking what constituted me. Slowly blinking, I attempted to reconcile my surroundings with the visions I had allowed free reign of my mind.
The old farmhouse room was sparsely furnished, with a worn couch with an age-worn pattern of upholstery which once may have been some floral scene, a decrepit clock with no ability to point toward the minutes for lack of the appropriate hand, and the lone table at the center of the room, empty save for an unattended envelope. The gloomy light of the rainy afternoon cast a dim blue haze about the place, giving the vertically striped wallpaper the appearance of prison bars. I frowned.
“Wasn’t there someone else here?” I said into the ether, not expecting a response. Through my internal haze, I realized that the envelope on the table was new to the scene, a replacement for the woman who had stood there sometime before. Reflexively, I glanced at the clock, determining from the position of the solitary hand that it must be somewhere around 3 o’clock. I felt the crease in my brow grow deeper. I had the unsettling feeling that an appreciable amount of time had elapsed.
I stumbled upon rising, feeling as though my body’s machinery desperately needed an oiling after such a long period of disuse. Righting myself, I stood before the table, the envelope in my hands, and examined it. The envelope was a fine quality cardstock, though I knew the contents to be quite far from “fine.” Unable to open it for fear of being confronted by the truth, I returned it to its original position, free to collect dust until the end.
“I need a drink,” I said.
I winced, the dryness of my throat precluding my ability to speak with any of my usual timbre. Maybe water would suffice. I became aware of my discomforts and traipsed toward the kitchen, feeling the glare of that dreadful envelope at my back. Stopping at the room’s threshold, I attempted to inhale for another sigh, only to be surprised as the inhalation was racked by the beginning of a sob. I clenched my teeth, squeezed my eyelids shut, and suspended what line of thought I had begun. Exhaling slowly, I stepped into the kitchen. Though the house was my own, every room seemed foreign, as if I were seeing each one for the first time.
Though to call the house my own would be an exaggeration, I had not built it nor paid for it in full. I was the custodian of a home built some two centuries prior and owned by a company with “Holdings” in its title. The house had stood long before me and would, ideally, stand for centuries after I had been gone from this good earth. As all good old houses of this sort do, this one talked often. With gentle creaks and murmurs, it would relay the general mood of the abode as effectively as any person could do with their entire vocabulary of prosaic words. Though on this day, even the old farmhouse knew to be silent, for one of the denizens that called it home was never to return.
I stood there at the entrance of that kitchen for a long time. Eventually, I sat down at the kitchen table. I examined the stains left by my careless placement of coffee cups over the years. As I began to trace one of the rings, I felt the shame of the damage I had done to such a beautiful old table. I placed my hands on my lap. With a shaky exhalation, I rose. Unsure of why I had stood, much less as to what direction my thoughts were headed, I allowed my feet to guide me through the rooms of the old house. Truthfully, the old farmhouse was a tiny affair, an aging one bed, one bath. However, the wrap-around porch could have constituted its own room.
It was the porch that had caught our attention when we were setting out for a house that we could inhabit together. I remember the look –
I stopped the painful memory before it could cause any more damage. Blinking, I looked around and found myself surprised to be on the porch. The sheet metal roof played its musical tones under the gentle pitter-patter of the November rain. As though experiencing a memory in real-time, I felt a disconnected sense of discomfort at the cold dampness that had begun to soak its way into my bones, causing an old injury to cry out in protest. I can’t rightly say how long it was that I stood on that porch, enduring the chill, numbly listening to the rain on the tin roof. All I know is that by the time I came back into myself, I was chilled to my core, unable to feel. Realizing the state I had put myself in, I knew the best thing was to ease my body with hot water, so I retreated inside and went to the bathroom.
In the bathroom was the old-fashioned claw foot bathtub. It was that tub that had sealed the deal for her. In my memory, she had turned to me, eyes catching the light of a long since passed Summer afternoon, her smile wide as heaven above, and said: “This is the one.”
I stepped into the tub, alone in the house we used to call home. Then, sitting down in the porcelain cradle, I placed my head in my hands and let the tears flow freely.
Writer | Crawford Dawson ’27 | ddawson27@amherst.edu
Editor | Mike Rosenthal ’27 | jrosenthal27@amherst.edu
Artist | Lola Ginsburg ’27 | lginsburg27@amherst.edu