There was a pang in my chest as I dragged my bulky bag down the dark hallway, which was on the other side of the house as Madeline and the kids.
With the kids asleep and my talk with Madeline over, the house resumed its crypt-like silence. The door to the old sewing room creaked open and I felt around for a light switch.
When the lights popped on, I gasped. Mello-Yellow was no more; the walls had been repainted a soft petal pink.
As I tossed my heavy bag on the full-sized bed in the middle of the room, my chest thickened with fury. How could you, Madeline?
The room was mostly bare. It was obvious that it was rarely used anymore.
Besides the bed, there were a small heart-shaped nightstand and a stout chest of drawers in the corner. I walked around the room, eyeing the pale pink walls.
My mother had painted this room yellow. With her own hands.
Now she was dead, and her hands would never create, paint, cook, sew, or hold me again.
And you just had to paint over it, didn’t you, Madi?
It had been a long time since I’d felt this sort of anger toward my sister. I’d nearly forgotten how easy it was to dislike her sometimes…
It was now, in this moment, that I realized I’d never gotten over the fact that it was her and Dad on one side, and Mom and I on the other. After twenty-five years of marriage, Mom had found out he was cheating. Instead of kicking my father out of the house that they had raised their children in, she had packed up her own belongings and left town. Madeline and I were adults by then, but still – their divorce had shaken me to the core. I was furious with my father; I wouldn’t even speak to him for months. But my sister, on the other hand, shamelessly defended his actions.
He deserves to be happy. You know he’s never been happy with her, Emily! This is good for both of them, don’t you see that? My sister tried to reason with me, but she always made it sound like Dad was doing Mom a favor by cheating on her, or that Mom was somehow responsible for his misdeeds. She took his side and I took Mom’s. We drew our lines in the sand and tossed handfuls of nasty words across the middle…
But it turned out Mom didn’t need me to defend her because six months after moving into her own apartment, she suffered a massive heart attack. I would never say this to my sister, but I’m certain she died of a broken heart. Losing my father killed her – literally. And even though, deep down, I knew it was completely irrational, I blamed that man for her death. I blame him still.
Now he’s gone too, and there’s no one left to blame.
Is that why I stayed away so long … because of him? I wondered. There were always excuses – visiting Madi and the kids was that one thing on my to-do list that always got carried over to the next week, the next month, the next year. I didn’t want to see my father, but it wasn’t only him, it was the ghosts of my past – old friends, old boyfriends, and … the woods. I hated those damn woods.
Shuddering, I thought about my sister’s current situation with her own husband, John. He was cheating on her, just like Dad did to Mom.
Deep down, there was this niggly, nasty part of me that wanted to say, It’s your fault. You didn’t make him happy, Madeline. This is better for everyone; don’t you see that? Give her a taste of her own medicine.
But those sorts of vicious thoughts made me instantly feel ashamed. I wanted my sister to be happy, and despite what happened with Mom and Dad, she didn’t deserve to be treated that way by her husband.
I yanked the duvet off the bed and crawled beneath the sheets. My new silk pajamas were folded away in my bag, and I casually considered getting back up to slide them on, but then my thoughts were still muddled, my feelings toward my sister unclear…
Maybe Dad had painted over Mom’s walls. He lived here up until last year when he died, after all. But with my eyes closed, I could still see that pretty shade of pink. It was something Madi would choose.
Should I ask her about it tomorrow? Or am I just being petty and overly nostalgic about Mom? Before I could give it a second thought, there was a soft tap on the door.
I pulled the covers up to my chin, strangely afraid. ‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s your sister, silly.’
The door was unlocked, and a moment later, Madeline pushed it open a crack and looked in at me. ‘You got everything you need? What time do you want me to wake you up?’
My mind was still angry over the paint and mom, but I said, ‘I’m fine, and I’ll set my alarm myself.’
‘Thanks again for coming, Em. And thanks for staying a while. You have no idea how much this means to me.’
I nodded, still unable to meet her eyes. I wanted to cry about the paint on the walls. I wanted to cry over my mother’s death. Hell, maybe I wanted to cry about dad, too. I wanted to be left alone.
Mom doesn’t live in the layers of paint on the walls, Emily, I reminded myself. But this was exactly why I didn’t want to come home. When I was away, I could push it out of my mind. I could forget. But here, there’s no avoiding the past…
‘Goodnight,’ Madeline said, pulling the door back closed.
‘Madi? Wait. Why didn’t you just tell me over the phone? I don’t understand why it was such a big deal, why this thing with John was some sort of secret?’
My sister peered back in through the crack. Her mouth looked droopy and strained, her eyes getting that far off look in them again…
‘That’s not the only reason I asked you here. There’s more. But we’ll talk about that tomorrow.’
The door clicked shut. I listened to the soft tapping sounds of my sister’s footsteps moving down the hallway. What the hell does that mean? Why is she being so vague and mysterious?
I slipped back out of bed and flipped out the lights. Before getting back in, I tiptoed over to the window and peeked out through the blinds.
The backyard was dark, but I could see billowy shadows dancing in the distance – the trees in the forest never went to sleep.
They were always there, watching me, haunting me, even when I lived far away … those creepy woods were the one thing I hadn’t been able to forget. Sometimes, I still dreamed of falling, falling, falling…
I wonder if it senses me, if it knows I’ve come back home. Again, I scoffed at my own childish notions. Maybe my sister wasn’t the only one acting strangely. Being here was bringing out the worst in me already. Those slender crevices are splitting open—waiting to be filled with memories … memories I’ve lost forever.
What my sister didn’t know was that I had a secret too. Mine wasn’t as cryptic as hers, but it was equally important.
She’d been asking me to come back home for so long. And I’d never planned on actually coming, but there were events that had occurred over the last few weeks that made the timing just right for a trip back home.
I’d lost my job at the paper. I hadn’t told Madi yet, although she’d given me plenty of opportunities to bring it up earlier this evening. But I would. I’ll tell her tomorrow, I decided.
So, even though I could stay and help out with the kids for a while, I couldn’t help much with bills until I found a new job. There wasn’t much work to be had in this town, and even if I did find a job, I didn’t want to stay here long enough to need one anyway.
I crawled back