to it, and how I would help her, carrying my plastic yellow watering can while she turned on the sprinkler.
Mari slips her hand into mine, but I slip mine back out and fold my arms. This used to be a happy home and all it took was one man to change the course of my life. “Dot you want to go inside?” Mari asks.
I shake my head. One look at this shithole, that’s all I wanted.
“But we’ve come all this way.”
“This is enough,” I tell her. But just then the door opens and a guy walks out with his hands in his pockets, his eyes narrowed. With us staring at the house it immediately looks suspicious. “Can I help you?” he asks.
“He used to live here when he was a boy,” Mari pipes up.
The guy looks at me as if he doesn’t trust me.
“We were just taking a walk down memory lane,” she adds. Mari and her big mouth. That woman doesn’t think. I turn around and head back towards her car.
“What do they want?” I hear someone say.
I turn around and see that a woman has also come out. “Come on,” I hiss to Mari, not sure why she’s engaging in a conversation with these strangers. But she waves me over. I refuse to go at first, but then my curiosity takes over and I walk back.
“You lived here?” the girl asks me. I give Mari a death stare.
“He did when he was a child,” Mari answers for me. “It would be great if he could take a quick look inside.”
Hell, no. I am not going inside. I start to walk away again, but she runs up behind me. “They said you could go in.”
“I don’t want to go in.”
“But they said you could.”
“I don’t want to,” I insist.
“Ward. We’re here. They said you could go in and have a look around. They don’t mind.”
Hell, no.
“Come on.” She takes my arm, and I begrudgingly head back towards the house with her.
“What did you say to them?” I growl.
“You weren’t going to ask so I did.” She looks at me with apprehension. “You might not get another chance, Ward. They seem nice people. They said you could have a quick look. Quick, though, because they were on their way out.”
I glance back at them, the girl is smiling although the guy still looks at me with trepidation. I don’t want to do this. After he died, I went back, hoping to reclaim the life me and my mom used to have. But she wasn’t so happy to have me back. She always blamed me for him dying. Said I punched him so hard it broke him. It broke me. I only lasted a year. Couldn’t listen to her pining for the piece of shit who had made my life a misery. Couldn’t reconcile this stranger of a woman with the mother I used to have. In the end, I left this hellhole not because of my step dad but because of my mom.
Mari takes my hand again and this time I don’t push it away. The couple watch us warily. Mari turns to them. “Do you want to show us around quickly?”
“Nah, you’re good to go. There’s nothing much of value for you to steal.”
The girl pokes the guy in the ribs. He has his phone out and is looking at it, as if he’s reading something.
“You can go in,” the girl urges.
I let go of Mari’s hand and walk through the tiny living room. I see the miniscule sized kitchen just off the side. It all looks so much smaller now that I am standing here as a grown man, instead of the six or seven year old I was when we first moved here.
I see my mom on the couch, and my stepdad standing over me. I relive the taunts, and shouts. I smell the alcohol and cigarette smoke. My heart begins to pound.
I don’t want to be here.
“Is it okay to go into the attic?” Mari asks.
“You want to go into the attic?” The guy echoes. “It’s a mess.”
“Let them,” the girl insists. “But be careful. The stairs are—”
“Narrow,” I say. They were always narrow. One time my stepdad scared me so badly, that I fell down the stairs as I left the room. I twisted my ankle and couldn’t walk for days.
We follow the girl upstairs. She waits on the landing and I look at the two tiny bedrooms. Both doors are open. Both rooms are