The day after the accident I came home to a house that felt entirely foreign to me. They say normal things can feel strange after a traumatic incident, so I chalked it up to stress and grief. A month later I was adjusting back to normal life, but things still never felt quite the same. The house that was once so lively was so quiet, and yet it seemed to take on a life of its own. You know how it is coming back to a hotel room after the maid has been through? Everything is in its place, yet it feels different because you know things have been moved? That’s how I felt coming home every day, almost like the house was moving things about on its own. It started out with little things, my keys or my glasses not being where I left them. I’m already forgetful so I didn’t think much of it. After a few weeks it escalated, my bedside table would be just a tiny bit further from the bed, or a chair I pushed in after breakfast would be pulled out again.
A month after the accident is when I really started to get paranoid that maybe I wasn’t being forgetful, that things were really changing. I got up one night to grab a snack, stumbled downstairs in the dark and made my way to the fridge. I pulled out the milk and then bothered to turn on a light so I could find my cereal in the pantry. Now, I am not the tidiest of people, I actually quite enjoy disarray, and my collection of refrigerator magnets typically demonstrated as much, nothing but a jumble. I find my cereal and pour a bowl, and as I return the milk I see that all my magnets are neatly lined up. This is when I knew something was going on in this house.
Over the next 6 weeks I sat and observed as things changed, trying to find messages in the littlest things, the relocation of my shoes or a reorganized living room. I knew there was no way anyone was getting into the house, often times things would change from the time I left one room to use the restroom and returned. I started taking the TV remote with me because I knew damn well I would never find it if I left it and went for a piss.
Three months after the accident I started to think that maybe I was going insane. I called my sister to come stay with me and see if I was sleepwalking or blacking out and doing these things myself. Our bodies cope with trauma in amazing ways; it wasn’t too farfetched to think that maybe this was all my own doing. 5 days later she and her sweet 3 year old daughter arrived, she agreed to stay for 2 weeks to keep an eye on me as long as I agreed to watch Jenny while she was at work. I always had a soft spot for little Jenny so I didn’t mind that arrangement at all.
The first day that Jenny and I spent together I found that I didn’t have much for us to do, so we took off for the toy store. I didn’t have kids of my own to spoil and I loved seeing her dimpley little smile when she got excited about a new toy. We left with a cart full of books, bubbles, dolls, even some alphabet refrigerator magnets so we could start practicing spelling names at whatnot. With her starting preschool soon I thought her mom might appreciate it.
The next few days went by without much incident, I was so absorbed with babysitting that I nearly forgot about my seemingly living house, but this morning I awoke to a disturbing reminder. I made it downstairs for breakfast, I made pancakes for Jen and I, she loves watching me try to make them funny shapes, like Mickey Mouse or a cat. After I served her I grabbed some juice, and as I closed the fridge door I saw that she had spelled out “hello” in her new magnets. Jenny hardly knows her alphabet so I was fairly surprised and asked her when she learned to spell hello, and her confusion is when the concern started seeping in again. Jenny is 3, she doesn’t know how to spell, she couldn’t have left that for me. I turned back just to be sure that it really said anything, only to find it had changed. “Miss me?” now resided in the center of the door. Trying to not looked panicked, I took off all the magnets and decided to wait until my sister was home to put them back and see what happened.
I did anything I could to stay distracted the rest of the day, Jenny and I read all her new books, named all her new dolls, blew bubbles, walked to the park and back, anything to keep my mind off the house. We finally got home about an hour before my sister would come back from work, I sent Jenny to the bathroom to wash her hands before we made a snack and headed for the kitchen. Before I even entered the room I saw seemed to be a layer of dusk all over the floor. As I approached I noticed I was leaving footprints in the white powder that now covered my tile, it almost looked like snow. The source was clear pretty quickly. My entire canister of flour had been dumped all over my counter, and slowly spread over the floor as I left my fan on this morning. I decided the best option was to just scrape everything off the counters onto the floor and sweep everything up. I grabbed my broom and headed for ground zero, only to find a message written in the flour. “Be with me” it said.
It took me a matter of moments to realize all that had happened, it all made sense. I set down the broom and headed upstairs. On the way I asked Jenny to go to her room and play for a bit, I needed some alone time and her mommy would be home soon. In fact she should be driving back by now. I got to my room, closed the door, took off my shoes, my belt, and started getting set up. Abby always loved our high ceilings, loved that we had so much space to hang art on the walls, loved our big arched door to the closet, loved the ugly curtains she hung in front of it, because even as an adult she was still scared of whatever monster might lurk in its dark corners. Today I was grateful for that as I looped my belt over that damn curtain rod. It had taken me hours to get it level, but anything for Abby, Abby wanted curtains in front of the closet, so she would get them. I stepped up onto the stool she use to use to reach the top shelf, which was rare enough, but it made a nice seat and it sure came in handy now. I heard the front door open and my sister call Jenny to come give her a hug as I kicked out the stool from under me. By the time she made it upstairs it would be too late to save me. I only hoped she would understand. My last thoughts weren’t of my sister though, they were of Abby. 8 years ago we swore, “til death do us part.” Now I pray that in death we are reunited.