Emoh Eomclew

I stared at my hands on the driving wheel while waiting at the stoplight. I kept asking myself if I should have even come back here. But the voice of my sister called me home after mother’s death, and she told me to meet her there around noon, but I was getting there early, to see the house alone before she got there. To see what once was.

I stopped talking to my mother thirty years ago. She would send letters in the mail through my sister, but I did not reply to any of them, some I never read. But now she is dead, and someone needs to clean out the house, and my sister asked for my help.

The light turned green and I turned onto the street I once called home. It looked the same. The divot in the road was still prominent as well. My house was about half a mile down the road. Looking at the trees and houses I had not seen in decades made my mind flood with memories. Some good, some bad, all ones I did not want to revisit.

My car creeped over the hill to reveal my childhood home, and I felt like crying upon seeing it, simply due to the little care shown to it. The house was partially covered by overgrown kudzu, some of the windows were cracked, and the lawn was rotting.

I cut power to my car and stepped out. “Ma, what the hell did you do to this place?” I spoke softly, trying not to cry. “I am here for my sister. Tommy, you are here for your sister, be strong damn it,” I told myself as I forced my body to walk towards the house.

I watched the pendulum of the grandfather clock swing back and forth as the ticks and tocks echoed throughout the living room. “Empty room,” I said to myself. I was now back inside my childhood home. “Why do I remember nothing else?” I asked myself. “Only all the pain this place caused me. Surely there was joy I had in this house? Some semblance of family before we all split,” I said to myself. I looked down and saw a piece of paper peeking out from beneath the clock. It was folded, so I opened it. “This is my father’s writing,” I said to myself before reading it.

My breathing got shaky and my vision became blurred by tears trying to read it. It was about his time with my mother, moving to this house, his twenty years with my mother before the divorce. “He… he never talked to anyone or about anyone this way before. He really loved her before that day. Before she cheated on him. I remember him… I remember us smiling now. Those days I tried to burn from my mind, from my memory, from my soul,” I cried to myself. I folded the letter and pushed it back under the grandfather clock. “I am sorry, sister, I can’t, I… I remember doing what I did. Why did I do it? Why did I leave home?” I yelled to myself. “Because my mother cheated and lied,” I told myself.

“Those claws, trying to claw back inside, back into my life. How it hurt to peel them away from my mind. I had to, for my own life, my own sanity!” I yelled out like someone was there. Maybe my mother, what remained of her in that house, heard me.

“Hey, you good?” a female voice spoke. I turned to see my sister Lanie. I nodded. She took a deep breath. “I heard you as I walked in. I won’t ask about it. But we should start moving stuff to the truck outside to bring to the unit,” Lanie said. I nodded. “No hello or anything?” Lanie asked like she was a bit offended. “Sorry, it's just been…” My voice trailed off. “I get it. I left this place once as well, remember?” Lanie said softly. “You were only gone a few years. I estranged myself from this place for thirty,” I spoke softly. “Three years or thirty, that feeling I would assume is the same, Tommy,” Lanie said. I took a deep breath. “I am sorry that I left you to deal with her,” I said softly. “No need for apologies. I chose to stay. I could have left again. She did not talk about you too much until a year after you left,” Lanie said. “Why did she send letters to me then?” I questioned. “Tommy, you know how she was. It was rarely she would write and frankly, most of those were from the first year, and I sent them to get her off my case. I did not exactly like being here but it was bearable. Especially the basement,” Lanie said with snark. “How bad?” I asked. “I think it would be better if you looked yourself, even though I think it should be left alone down there,” Lanie said.

I saw them… it remained here… she never let go,” I said to myself looking at the wall. Every image of herself at a festival she could fit on the walls of the basement was up there. My mother never left that world, never became family outside of biologically being my mother, just kept partying. Every week she would drag me somewhere, and nearly every month she was trying to go to a festival, forcing myself and the family around. She would say she cared but she only cared about herself.

I stood close to a picture of my mother at the first festival she brought me to. She told me it would be a great birthday present. Rage began to build inside looking at that picture, at all the pictures, the whole house. All of it I wanted to throw away and forget about it. Burn down the house and have someone build another house on top of it. Just to erase every memory I could have of being here…

I remember now.