Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 61867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
I can read Iris very well and generally know what’s on her mind or what she’s thinking, but I’m confused. If I did something wrong, I want to fix it. The last thing I want is for Iris to be upset at me or our situation. I know that she needs her space right now, but the more I pace around the house, the more I know I just will not be able to give it to her.
I pull out my phone but immediately realize I don’t have her number. Not anymore.
I had to get a new cell when I got back to the States, and I don’t have her contact yet. In the last few days, I haven’t even needed it, so I just haven’t even asked her for it.
I dial her house-line that I still have memorized from when we were young, but it’s been disconnected, so I hang up, slide my phone in my pocket, grab the keys to my BMW sitting in the garage so I don’t have to deal with any shards of glass, and head out.
I’m usually not a fidgety guy, but I realize that I’m tapping my fingers on the steering wheel as I drive over to her house. I guess I’m nervous. Not because I’m worried about talking to her or what I’m going to say, but because I’m worried about how she’s doing.
All I want to do is reassure her. I want to talk to her and let her know that everything is going to be okay. I don’t like seeing her on edge or knowing that she has thoughts spinning around in her mind that could potentially be causing her pain. That’s the last thing I want.
But as I pull up at her house, I can already see that won’t be possible. At least not right now.
Iris’s car isn’t in the driveway, and the light in her bedroom is off, meaning if anyone is there right now, it’s only her mother, and talking to her isn’t going to get me anywhere. Especially if she’s still drinking like she used to.
I doubt she’d even know where Iris is anyway. Iris sure wouldn’t have told her. My guess is she went somewhere with Eliza, but I don’t have her number either. I’m just about to turn around and head home when my eyes fall on the dark and crumbling remains of my childhood home.
It’s just sitting next door to Iris’s house, looking much worse for wear than the last time I saw it. I can’t believe it’s only been three years, but I guess that’s what happens when no one is around to care for it.
All the storms we get around here in the winter have clearly taken their toll. The front screen door is hanging aside, ready to fall off its hinges, and the front steps look completely rotted away and ready to fall in on themselves. There’s mildew all along the edges of the windows, as well as moss covering the roof. It looks like someone came by and started stealing the siding off the west wall of the house as well, exposing the plywood sheathing to the weather.
A pang of emotion stings my chest, like the feeling of reopening an old wound.
I thought about this house every day for the first few six months while we were living in Albania. I kept telling myself that I would see it again—that I was going home. But after the weeks kept going by, it became harder and harder to believe that, and after my parents were killed, I forced the memory of home from my mind altogether.
I just could not think about it or I would go crazy. I wouldn’t be able to function, and I had to be able to function to survive. I never even looked online to see if it was listed for sale or if it was still standing or if it had been torn down. Even looking at it now, I have no idea who owns the house I grew up in. The house filled with so many of my childhood memories.
I pull the car into the driveway, park, and get out. There’s definitely no one living here at the moment, so who’s going to care?
Thousands of recollections wash over me like a wave as I walk up slowly to the front door and peer inside.
It doesn’t look like anyone has even been inside since my mom, dad, and I left. I see the red notebook on the counter where my mom used to scribble things down while she was on the phone. There’s even her purple pen sitting beside it. There’s a chocolate protein bar wrapper by the sink next to my dad’s blue coffee cup. The chairs by the table are right how we left them, with mine slightly askew like I hadn’t pushed it in right after dinner. That would have been just like me.