The House on Deer Creek Road: Part 4

By J. L. Thurston

The storm raged all night. But that following day in the house found me determined and strong. I had a plan. Once Nyla left for work and I got Jane cleaned, fed, and interested in a stuffed animal, I put my plan to action.

This was not my mother’s house anymore. But with every room full of her memories, it would always feel that way. I had to shake whatever imprints she’d left behind. I had to remove her from the atmosphere.

I began to empty the house. At first, I was just filling the laundry basket with books, trinkets, dishes, and clothes. Then I started prying the shelves off the walls, sliding the bookcases out the door, and tearing the couches and chairs apart piece by piece. Everything I touched ended up in a pile in the wet gravel driveway. I scratched the floors, put holes in the drywall, and shattered two lightbulbs in my wake. I was an animal. Anything that wasn’t mine had to go. Even the television, the toiletries, the cleaning supplies- though there weren’t many as my mother was not the cleanest person who ever lived.

I worked while the attic creaked, the piano played. I stopped for Jane often. I stopped to walk just inside the tree line and call for Bones. I stopped to chat with Nyla on her break. I stopped to greet her as she pulled up into the crowded driveway.

She eyed the mess I was making. She eyed my sweating skin. She called her three brothers. Two were free to come by and help. Nyla bribed them with beer and pizza. Isiah and Jordan were good guys. They teased, laughed, and made a lot of noise. I don’t like noise, but the sound of the breaking of my mother’s belongings was like music. Especially when the four of us hoisted the piano and inched it out of the house and into the pile.

I bet they thought I was crazy. I bet they thought Nyla was crazy for liking me. They were surprised to see us work kisses into our tasks. Nyla told me I wasn’t the first woman she’d liked, but it’d been a while. She thought her brothers would be happy to see her with someone after so long. Judging from the little smirks they kept exchanging, I think they were.

I could have told her how I felt. I could have told her that I’d never dated a woman and never felt romantically about anyone, male or female, before her. I should have let her know that before her, I was only interested in fulfilling my needs. Before her, I didn’t want anything from most people at all. I didn’t tell her any of those things. I was not in a talking mood. I was busy.

Anne Frank wrote that people feel regret stronger than they feel gratitude. I know what she meant.

Jane was happy to see Nyla. She babbled and cooed in her arms. I wasn’t the only one falling in love with Nyla.

While we worked, nothing odd happened. Well, if you read all the accounts, the interviews from Isiah state nothing happened, but Jordan likes to tell everyone he saw a person walking around in the corner of his eye. If that’s true, he never said anything to me about it. But there was one thing that really did happen that was pretty weird. When we moved the china cabinet away from the entryway hall, we revealed a door. The black paint was chipped and flaking off the wood. I tried to open it, only to find it locked.

Honestly, we all figured it was probably a forgotten hall closet. Considering the heavy cabinet that’d been hiding it, I was certain my mother didn’t have anything in there.

Regret, regret, regret.

Lastly, but most importantly, I went to the entryway hall. The stain on the floor from my mother’s decomposing corpse had to go. Isiah let me use his crowbar. Everyone watched me pry the floorboards up and throw them outside. The hole would be dangerous, as it was just to the side of the stairs and only lent a little space for passing by.

I felt better with that hole in the floor.

We ate pizza. Isiah and Jordan liked lots of meat toppings. Nyla and I both liked ham and pineapple. We were alike in the best ways.

They drank a lot of beer. I only had one. I was already so tired. So tired from working hard all day. But my day wasn’t done. Nyla stayed behind with Jane and her brothers. They were playing music, having laughs. I promised I wouldn’t be gone long.

Trusting near strangers with my child, I left to get a cat. I don’t think a good mother would have done so. But I did, and everything turned out fine. More than fine, actually, because the shelter was getting ready to close for the day but the lady was so happy that someone was there to adopt a cat, she was prepared to stay late for me.

She showed me into the cat room. It smelled and wasn’t very clean. There were way too many cats. It was totally different from when I adopted Bones. His owner had died, they told me. I had to fill out an application and come back three times before I could take him. But cats were tossed in and out of shelters like trash.

My mother gave me up before my second birthday. I knew the feeling.

There was a cat watching me from the windowsill. He was orange, black, and white in no particular order. He blinked one amber eye at me. His other eye was missing. He had one and a half ears and less than half a tail. His name was Scarecrow. He was perfect.

The shelter let me adopt him for free, but I paid twenty dollars for a litter box, a bag of litter, and a bag of food. When I returned to the house, Nyla and Jane were alone. I didn’t have any dishes inside the house, anymore, so we shared a bottle of wine while Jane and Scarecrow became friends on the empty living room floor.

It had been quite a day, but I felt so good. Nyla gave me strength. We stayed side-by-side while we fed Jane and gave her a bath. We put Jane to bed on her little mattress. We made a nest on my bedroom floor and watched movies on my laptop with Scarecrow purring himself to sleep right beside us. Our voices echoed in the empty space, so we found ourselves whispering.

Those perfect moments with Nyla were few and short, but they live forever in my heart.

Creak, creak, creak.

Jane started to cry. Breaking out of the little happiness bubble I’d formed with Nyla, I went across the hall, mentally going through the checklist of the baby’s needs. As I was bending down to pick her up, a horrible crash sent hot pain all over my back.

Nyla came running into the room. She lifted something heavy off my back. Jane was shrieking. I looked her over and found that I could hardly see through all the dust in the room. The baby wasn’t hurt, as far as I could tell, but I was shaking all over. I felt as though a car had hit me from behind. I stood in confusion for only a moment before I realized that the ceiling fan had crashed down upon me. It would have fallen on the baby if I’d been a second too slow.

That shouldn’t have happened. It was impossible. I had Scarecrow, now, so the activity should have stopped.

Nyla begged to leave. She wanted us all to stay at her apartment.

We retreated down the steps to the front door. I was utterly exhausted. My head was swimming. My back pain sent thunder into my skull. The realization that I was under attack from my own house caused tears to well up in my eyes.

We stayed the night at Nyla’s apartment. Jane and I slept in her bed, soaking in the comfort and peace we’d been without since entering the house on Deer Creek Road. I secretly wished we could stay forever.

I didn’t realize Nyla had a roommate until the morning. Her name was Ariel, and she was anything but a Disney Princess. She was not happy that Nyla had invited me and my baby to stay the night. I took Jane and departed quickly.

I had no choice but to return to the house.

Return to the dawn of the final day in the House on Deer Creek Road