An Otherwise Stable House

Sensitive content: death and grief; child endangerment; life-threatening danger (fire); mild profanity

They built the house crooked. I’ve been telling Jim for weeks that they built the house crooked.

Drawers that don’t stay closed, tennis balls rolling by on their own, the can of soup I dropped rolling across the room as I juggle an armful of groceries, a front door that closes way too easily and way too loud and takes way too much work to open way too slowly. Luckily, any neighbors we have are too far away to be bothered by the random slam of a door I couldn’t catch in time. It takes 10 minutes just to reach the closest one when I take my sons on our daily walks.

He insists they didn’t. “The house is just haunted.” He thinks he’s funny.

My ghosts are decidedly committed to only sending things in one direction – down the hill our new home is built on, that is. What a coincidence. Lazy fuckers if you ask me. The ghosts, that is. Well, I guess the builders, too.

Honestly, it’s more house than I needed, but with two-year-old twin boys, an 18-month-old yellow lab that was absolutely not my idea, and a third child (a girl ~ I’m naming her Ella) on the way, my brother-in-law Jim bought it for me as a gift. An “I’m sorry,” if you will. As in, “I’m sorry your husband died suddenly because of an illness he refused to get checked out earlier, leaving you completely alone to face life as a single mother with three kids.” Or something like that. I can’t be too upset about the size since his apology also includes indefinite weekly maid services, but at 8 months pregnant and carrying 30 extra pounds or so that my body isn’t used to, I have to say I’m getting tired of wrestling with a front door that apparently thinks it’s funny to weigh five times what it should.

“What kind of newbuild has ghosts?” I grumble back, mostly playfully. Though it makes sense why he should choose ghosts over a crooked foundation. An exorcist is cheaper than a complete restructuring.

Usually we laugh about it. I mean, besides the whole 8 months pregnant, grieving my-heart-doesn’t-need-so-many-jump-scares-in-my-own-home thing, I’ve come to think of it as a delightful quirk in this otherwise stable house that’s keeping my suddenly smaller family safe. Whimsical, even. Every day waking up not knowing what might have migrated where. Also, though I’d never admit this to Jim and lose my right to dramatics, a lot of these random acts of gravity have been working out in my favor.

A gentle hip nudge of the dresser with my arms full of freshly folded laundry, and every drawer falls open for me. Trapped on the couch under sleeping twins and can’t reach the remote, but can slide it down towards me with a few shakes of the cushion. Aforementioned dropped can of soup being stopped by a randomly closing door. Not having to worry about keeping my front door locked despite having two rambunctious two-year-olds committed to testing every door knob, because it’s too heavy for them to open (hell, it’s almost too heavy for me to open)? Don’t mind if I do.

Hey, Jim set up an elaborate alarm system around the house. My family is safe. Don’t judge.

Between the hormones and the grief, there are moments where I almost feel like these moments are…I don’t know, like Andrew is still here maybe? Taking care of me, of us? Which is crazy, obviously. I know that’s not a real thing. Besides, I’m pretty sure if it were Andrew, he wouldn’t be contained by the laws of gravity. But still, it’s nice to think. It’s a nice thought to fall asleep to.

Jim has stayed with us off and on since Andrew died, and he was here for the whole first month of settling into our new home. He acts like someone who feels responsible for our loss, which is of course not true, but I can’t say I’ve fought him on it. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him. And, it’s probably been good for him, too. I think being with us has helped.

It’s now been a little over a week since Jim left us to figure this whole “being alone” thing on our own, though he said he’s going to come back when I’m getting closer to giving birth. It’s not far off, but we’re trying to find a healthy balance in our new interdependent independence.

And tonight, the twins won’t stop crying. To be fair, I also want to cry endlessly these days, but at least I have the decency to let other people (ahem, them) sleep when I do it.

Colin has been sniffling for a few days now, and the cold has finally taken hold. My poor boy is feverish and miserable. And Cory is crying because Colin is crying.

This will be so fun in a month.

Honestly, I’m overwhelmed and not doing great. My body hurts from the weight of my baby and my grief and my life, and Colin has almost certainly shared his cold with me (so generous! I’m sure Cory is next). Plus sick or not, I just don’t sleep well these days. Especially in a new house. Where things move.

And they’re definitely moving because the house was improperly built on a hill, not because it’s haunted.

Thanks, Jimmy, you’re so funny!

And to top it off, tonight is Halloween, and despite being in the middle of nowhere, I somehow had trick-or-treaters. Thank God Jim is a candy fiend and left some of his stash. Actually Andrew is - was - too, but that’s one of the few things of his I was able to let go of in our move. An obvious error that Jim quickly corrected.

Anyway, the point is, I’m tired. 

I turn on the stove to heat up some leftover soup and swing back into the twins’ room to see if I can settle them down, and am delighted to find they beat me to it. They’re both asleep. The small miracles of the evening.

I take advantage of the unexpected but desperately needed respite and sneak away into my own room for a bit, eager to settle into my soft king bed and enjoy a brief moment of not being needed. I’m so tired I’m having trouble thinking straight, and an increasingly pounding headache isn’t helping. I curl my aching body around an already waiting Buster; two minutes to close my eyes is all I….

Something crashes in the kitchen. 

THE SOUP. I bolt up with the sudden memory and my stomach drops as I smell smoke in the air. How long was I asleep?? I rush out of my room and down the hall as the smoke gets stronger, sprinting by the now-screaming twins’ room and coming to a gravity-assisted sliding stop in the kitchen.

The stove is off.

A glass vase - a glass vase from Andrew - is shattered on the ground. This isn’t the time to be sad. This isn’t the time to be thinking of him.

What…who turned off the stove? I don’t...The soup is fine…so where is the smoke? 

The twins. The twins are screaming. The smoke was heaviest by their room. What is happening??

My socks slip on my floors as I throw my body back up in the direction it just came from, but I manage to stay on my feet.

I had left their door cracked open and dread pours down my spine as I notice smoke pouring from the top.

I push the door open and see flames licking at the window. The house is on fire.

Alarms, fire extinguishers, 911. Seconds. Our lives depend on seconds. Trick or treaters. Kids. My house is burning down. It all runs through my mind as I try to figure out how I’m going to get both my kids out of here. And the dog. Jesus, where is he? I can’t bury my dog, too.

I pull Cory into my arms feeling the heat grow stronger by the moment. For the first time since they were born, their crying isn’t my main priority.

What a strange thought to have right now.

Colin is next, and I’m struggling. Ella wants in on the action, and the pressure hurts as I lunge out of their room and hear the glass of the window behind me shatter. My hips struggle, my back protests, my boys scream. My house is on fire.

“Buster!” I scream into the noise. How can he hear me over the twins? How can he hear me over the flames?

The back of the house is already taken over. I have to go to the front. I have to get through the front door.

The front door. I falter for the first time. The front door that I can barely open on a good day.

I can’t do this. 

I need help.

The flames are moving faster than I am and my lungs burn. My eyes burn. My nose burns.

No one can get here in time.

I drag myself and my sons towards our only hope for escape. I have to try.

That door. 

That front door.

I can see it. We’re so close.

Buster! He’s right in front of me.

We reach the door, and I shift Colin to free my left hand.

The heat of the metal sears into my skin as I turn the handle to unlatch it.

The tug on the door undoes me. The weight of the twins pulls me down as the weight of the door slams it back into place.

There’s no way we die like this. There’s no way we die because of this door.

A sob breaks out of me as I realize I can’t do it. I can’t with this f***ing door. We need help.

* * *

Ten years later, and I still don’t understand what happened. I mean, they figured out the cause of the fire - some local kids were testing nature’s flammability and got too close to the house. We all survived, thank God, and firefighters were able to reach us before the fire spread beyond our house. I try not to think too much about how much more that almost cost me.

But the rest of it? The stove, the vase. The door. The imprint of the door handle is still burned into the palm of my hand, but I know I didn’t get that door open. I know it.

The door opened by itself.