I sat in my car across the street, staring at my old house: The one place I needed to visit that wasn’t on my list. Even though I knew the swing my Dad and I hung together would be long gone, I strained to see the porch through the trees, as if by looking I could make it reappear. I had dreamed about our swing more than once; always in my dreams, I stole it back.
The last time I’d seen the house, I was nineteen and doubled over in the kind of pain that twists memories out of shape. I’d pressed my face against my friend David’s passenger window as he drove us slowly away; I’d held my fingers flat to the window, as though by reaching I could unhinge our swing, proof that my family once was.
Shaking off the memory, I walked toward the front door, smoothing my skirt and hoping I looked presentable enough to be invited in. I noticed how tall the trees had become, how overgrown the bushes were, how unkempt the yard. The house’s blue paint was peeling.
As I knocked, I realized two things: the concrete was cracked beneath my feet and I had no idea what to say. I couldn’t exactly lead with the truth: Hello, I’m here to make peace with my past.
I heard one set of little feet running to the door and calls of “Mo-oom! There’s a stranger at the door!”
A middle-aged woman opened the door, surrounded by her three young daughters. They were so like my sisters and me that I was speechless for a moment. The mother looked at me as if expecting a sales pitch.
My words tumbled out fast and quiet, each statement a question. “Hello? I’m so sorry to bother you, but I used to live here?” She looked confused and I felt desperate, wishing I had a picture to prove my identity. I thought fast. “I grew up here? Me and my two sisters? Our handprints and footprints are drawn in marker in the garage? Next to our names?”
She visibly relaxed, and the girls jumped up and down clapping. “We started doing that too! We trace our hands and feet too!”
“Which sister are you?” asked the oldest. I felt a storm behind my eyes.
“I’m Rebecca,” I squeaked, giving the name that would be on the wall. “I was wondering, if sometime I could, um, maybe come in and see the house?”
The mother paused, considering. “We’re having the whole downstairs renovated next week, so maybe you could come by after that.”
I imagined my childhood home renovated past recognition but maintained a plastic smile. Taking out a business card, I said, “Well, okay, just call or e-mail me?” She promised she would, but her tone implied she wouldn’t. The girls waved good-bye and slammed the door shut.
Don’tcryDon’tcryDon’tcry, I told myself, until I saw it hanging on the far side of the porch: cracked from weather and covered in spider webs, half the seat broken off, and tilted all the way to the ground, our family’s swing was alive—just barely. I didn’t care how bad it looked; it was still there. I had to have it.
“YOU DID WHAT?” TRENT asked a second time.
“At least I didn’t steal it,” I retorted, defending myself. (Nocturnal kleptomania I might have considered, but not daytime theft.) “I just sent them a letter asking if I could buy the swing.”
My husband, who has been known to eat raw meat instead of inconveniencing the wait staff, was understandably scandalized, but he rallied. “You may be the weirdest person in the world, but you’re my weirdest person.”
After dinner I sat down to meditate, but my phone beeped with an e-mail. I reached to silence it, but noticed the subject and stopped.
Re: Your old house
I got to thinking that maybe you would like to walk thru the house the way you remember it before we redo the downstairs? If you do, just give me a few hours’ notice . . . and about the swing, it broke last summer, and we are planning on getting a new one. I loved that swing, but it is yours free if you want it.
—Annie
THIS TIME I KNOCKED with more confidence, probably because Trent was holding my other hand.
In my mind, the house was empty and desolate, unchanged since the day I left, but in reality it was filled with life, and not just human life. When Annie let us in I saw that her family had wildlife—as in birds. Lots of flapping, singing birds in every color. Most were in cages, but one had escaped and was flying above our heads.
I had to stop myself from laughing. My old house, the place I’d thought would be a tomb, was now an aviary without trees. Fearing bird poop in the hair was a small price to pay.
Through the playroom windows overlooking the backyard, I saw the stump of my favorite tree. Lightning had struck that tree during the worst of our family’s troubles, as though even the sky knew what was coming. The last time I’d seen it, the tree was strewn across the yard, split wide, open to the elements. In the fallen tree’s place stood a swing set. And on top of the stump sat pots of flowers blooming bright as the spring day.
The littlest girl saw me looking and asked, “You like our backyard?”
“Yes,” I said, turning around from the window to face her. “I love it.”
“Come see our room!” she pulled me. Soon we were standing in my old room. Though I knew in my head this was where I had spent thousands of nights, I hardly recognized it. I looked to the place where I knelt in prayer every night, and I grew teary for the first time since we entered the house. But I wasn’t sad.
I imagined a younger me, kneeling in prayer beside the bed, and silently I thanked her for being so open to God. I whispered to her in my mind, feeling her so vividly that I could almost reach out and stroke her hair. Without you, I wouldn’t be here. So stay the path, little one. It will lead you home.
Next door, I found the yellow bathroom was yellow no longer. The place I’d remembered during my Scientology audit now existed only in my memory; it, too, was shiny and new.
“We renovated it last year,” explained Annie.
I could sense our time was coming to a close, so I asked, “Where’s the swing?”
Annie walked us through the garage to pick it up. I was unprepared for the emotion that squeezed me, hard and fast, when I saw the marks on the garage wall. Our names—Mary, Marcia, Rebecca—were written next to growth charts. Outlines of our hands were traced next to the charts, growing progressively higher in crayon and pen and marker with dates in the center.
I lifted my hand to the wall, reaching back in time to the last day I was home. I put my hand inside the lines—a perfect match, proof I was that girl a decade ago, and that I wasn’t her anymore.
Annie looked on. “I thought about painting over those,” she said, “but I could never bring myself to do it. I guess I’m just sentimental like that.” Her voice was choked with emotion as she watched me. “I sure am glad I didn’t.”
Fifteen minutes later, we had said our good-byes and loaded the swing in the car.
“Happy to have your swing back?” Trent asked as we drove away.
“I am,” I said, turning to look at it. “But I already have everything I thought it would give me back.”