‘But the mortgage is already paid for.’
Madeline stuck up a hand to stop me. ‘I still can’t afford it. Well, I could if…’
‘If…?’ I pressed.
‘If I had a roommate. Or, I was thinking I could open it up again, like Grandma and Grandpa used to do…’
My heart filled with dread as I realized what she was asking.
‘I can’t move back here. I can’t. There are too many bad memories here, Madi, you know that…’
‘But there are good memories, too, aren’t there?’
I nodded slightly, unsure if there really were…
My sister’s eyes were filmy again. She was staring at an old-fashioned cat clock on the wall. Following her gaze, I suddenly realized that it was the same one that had always hung there. You can never go home again – those words pinged around my head like ping pong balls, but I quickly shook them off.
‘I can stay for a while. I’ll need an internet connection for work.’
‘Already have one,’ my sister gushed. Her face was red and cheery again, like a heavy load had just been lifted from her shoulders. I didn’t want to get her hopes up too much – I couldn’t stay that long.
‘Thank you, Em. I knew I could count on you.’ My sister threw her arms around me for the second time today, nearly knocking over the coffee between us in the process.
I rested my chin on her shoulder, staring out the kitchen window behind her. The sun shone brightly again, and through the trees, I could see a sparkle of water glistening between them. Those woods held nothing but horror for me, memories of the time I got hurt out there circling back for the first time in years…
Even though I was sitting here now, doing the right thing, I wanted to grab my own duffel bag and run from this place.
Maybe the saying means you can go home, you just shouldn’t.
The night trickled into the early morning hours, my sister and I chatting on the couch in the den. We chatted for hours after the kids went to bed, about John, about my lackluster love life. My sister asked me questions about work and college. Has your life turned out the way you thought it would?
It was strange how even after all this time, and distance, things between us felt the same. My sister was the only person who could pluck a thought, just like that, from my brain. The night had taken on a dreamlike quality, the wine she kept pouring making me fuzzy and strange.
By the time I stumbled back out to the car to retrieve my bag, I was overcome with sleepiness. The long drive to Bare Border and the hours of catching up had gone straight to my head. A rush of wind ripped through the trees surrounding the property, creating a thousand tiny whispers in the night air…
Like a timid child, I yanked my bag out of the trunk and ran back inside with my head tucked down to my chest.
Madeline was waiting for me in the doorway. She looked tired too, and she pointed down the east hallway as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.
‘I put you up in the guest room. The Mello Yellow Room.’
I nearly choked when she said that – either from tears or laughter, I didn’t know. I’d forgotten we called it that because it was so yellow, like our favorite citrusy drink when we were kids. Mom had painted the room herself, and she’d chosen this god-awful mustard-colored paint that gave the room its name today.
Well, it’s my sewing room. So, it doesn’t matter if you girls like it or not, my mother had huffed. She would sit back there for hours some days, her posture perfect and stiff as the machine whirred and droned out its own methodical beat.
There was a pang in my chest as I dragged my bulky bag down the dark hallway, which was on the other side of the house as Madeline and the kids.
With the kids asleep and my talk with Madeline over, the house resumed its crypt-like silence. The door to the old sewing room creaked open and I felt around for a light switch.
When the lights popped on, I gasped. Mello-Yellow was no more; the walls had been repainted a soft petal pink.
As I tossed my heavy bag on the full-sized bed in the middle of the room, my chest thickened with fury. How could you, Madeline?
The room was mostly bare. It was obvious that it was rarely used anymore.
Besides the bed, there were a small heart-shaped nightstand and a stout chest of drawers in the corner. I walked around the room, eyeing the pale pink walls.
My mother had painted this room yellow. With her own hands.
Now she was dead, and her hands would never create, paint, cook, sew, or hold me again.
And you just had to paint over it, didn’t you, Madi?
It had been a long time since I’d felt this sort of anger toward my sister. I’d nearly forgotten how easy it was to dislike her sometimes…
It was now, in this moment, that I realized I’d never gotten over the fact that it was her and Dad on one side, and Mom and I on the other. After twenty-five years of marriage, Mom had found out he was cheating. Instead of kicking my father out of the house that they had raised their children in, she had packed up her own belongings and left town. Madeline and I were adults by then, but still – their divorce had shaken me to the core. I was furious with my father; I wouldn’t even speak to him for months. But my sister, on the other hand, shamelessly defended his actions.
He deserves to be happy. You know he’s never been happy with her, Emily! This is good for both of them, don’t you see that? My sister tried to reason with me, but she always made it sound like Dad was doing Mom a favor by cheating on her, or that Mom was somehow responsible for his misdeeds. She took his side and I took Mom’s. We drew our lines in the sand and tossed handfuls of nasty words across the middle…
But it turned out Mom didn’t need me to defend her because six months after moving into her own apartment, she suffered a massive heart attack. I would never say this to my sister, but I’m certain she died of a broken heart. Losing my father killed her – literally. And even though, deep down, I knew it was completely irrational, I blamed that man for her death. I blame him still.
Now he’s gone too, and there’s no one left to blame.
Is that why I stayed away so long … because of him? I wondered. There were always excuses – visiting Madi and the kids was that one thing on my to-do list that always got carried over to the next week, the next month, the next year. I didn’t want to see my father, but it wasn’t only him, it was the ghosts of my past – old friends, old boyfriends, and … the woods. I hated those damn woods.
Shuddering, I thought about my sister’s current situation with her own husband, John. He was cheating on her, just like
