The House

(For Caroline)

The next thing I knew, we were standing in the hallway by the front door, holding hands. The closet was open, and I smelled the wool sweaters, raincoats and rubber galoshes. The floor was different, indistinct, but that didn’t bother me.

We walked down the hall and into the kitchen. The form of the room was nebulous, as if it were shifting, refusing to settle down. But the smell of cooling apple pie began to give the space its familiar shape. The coffee maker, radio, food processor and tea tin sat on the counter in a row. We turned to each other and smiled.

We went to the basement stairs and descended. The double room was empty, bare concrete floor and walls, bare wood slats overhead. I could tell the house had just been built. We laughed as we thought of all the stuff that would one day fill the space: the old family pictures, the chair rail, the piano, the television, the slide projector, the art books, the people, the animals.

We walked through to the other side of the basement. A dog leash lay on the floor, and rows of old winter coats hung on racks along the wall. A single bulb with a darkroom filter dangled from the ceiling, illuminating the room. I could see the spiders had not arrived yet. At the far end of the room in the left corner was a dark block of masonry, stretched floor to ceiling. It had once been the furnace. Behind it was a cubbyhole, magnitudes blacker than the concealing stone.

I stepped forward, feeling the damp chill of concrete under my feet.

“Why did we come here?” she said. “I don’t like it down here.”

I felt uneasy too, and said nothing.

“I’m not going back there,” she said.

“But we’re here now,” I said. “Maybe we should.”

“I don’t want to.”

I didn’t want to either. “But I think we should.”

“Then you first.”

“Okay.”

I let go of her hand and stepped in behind the furnace. I turned around, put my back to the wall and slid down to sit. I could see the blue flame of the pilot light and I could feel its heat. “Come on,” I said. “It’s fine.”

She walked in behind the block of stone, and sat down facing me. We smiled at each other, started giggling.

The next thing I knew, we were on the stairs, walking to the top floor. At the end of the hall was a single door, off to the right. We walked to it, opened it and looked inside. The room was empty, the king-size bed and the dressers all gone. The floor was bare wood, the big carpet no longer there to cover it. Most of the far wall was missing, as if it had been hit by a wrecking ball. The sky visible through the opening was dark grey, and a frigid wind whipped the treetops. All that remained were some framed paintings hanging on the walls, obscured by dust but intact.

We surveyed the room for a long moment. “They’re not here.”

“No. They’re gone.”

We ran down the stairs and through the house to the family room. The couch sat along the left wall, looking out into the pink garden. The beautiful old carpet and chess table were in their places.

“Remember Christmas Eve, when we’d sleep down here?”

“Yes. That was always one of my favorite times.”

The fireplace had changed. “It’s like it was before.”

“Yes.”

We embraced.

“I think it’s time to leave.”

“Alright. Let’s come back sometime.”

“Maybe.”

“Yes, maybe.”

“Come on, then - up the chimney we go.”

“Really? You wanna?”

“Why not?”

And so we did.

When I awoke, I lay in bed a few minutes staring at the ceiling. I got up, put some water on for coffee, and washed my face. When the coffee was ready, I poured a mug. Then I picked up the phone and called my sister.

It rang twice, and she answered: “Oh, hi! This is so weird - I was just about to call you. I had this crazy dream last night.”

We talked for hours.