Finding Faith

I've meant to do this for years. I have to do it, now. Otherwise I'll hate myself forever. It's been a dead weight on me all my life, and it makes me sick; I have to remove it, somehow.

After my mother passed, my family-my sister Doreen and I, that was all-had title to the house, as the next of kin. It had the old furniture in it from when we were kids-the table in the living room with the cotton doily on it, the big old pump organ with the family bible on it, the the stereo console where Dad played his LPs, the upright piano with Dad's LPs stacked on top of it.

In the dining room, an old clock with the pendulum stood on the wall; the China cabinet had the nice old chinaware that was never used, and there stood the buffet, where we placed all of our junk that we didn't know what to do with.

Problem is, Doreen is nowhere to be found; she just disappeared. I called and texted her, I emailed her, no response. It's just as well; I don't want to deal with any of my blood relatives, not after they way they treated me in my childhood.

Sell it all. that's the only thing to do with the old house. Sell it, get it out of my life, forever.

I once offhandedly said to Doreen, "How much can we sell it for?"

She faced me, like I did something terrible-anything I said and did was a crime to her-and proclaimed, "Bobby Roder, this is YOUR house, where YOUR mother and YOUR father lived, where YOU grew up! How DARE you make such an idea? It's disGRACEful!"

"Dor," I replied, trying to reason with her, "we don't live here, we don't use the stuff inside, so we don't need it."

"Mom made us SWEAR to hold on to it!" she raged, "we gotta hold on to it, no matter what, we OWE it to our parents!"

I remember that: what DO we owe Mom and Dad? They're gone, and we have our own places to live. The whole neighborhood knows no one lives here anymore. The kids in the neighborhood will break in and smash things, and we're stuck dealing with the insurance. what if there's a fire, or lightning hits it? What good would it do us?

Doreen never stayed in the house; she and I just entered, look at what's there for the thousandth time, see that it's all there. we didn't sleep or eat there after we laced Mom in the retirement community, we just looked inside it. Still Doreen never wanted to let go of it; "for our mother and father," we had to hang on to it.

I'll have to call Walt Jensen, the real-estate attorney I've been in touch with on this. Do I need Doreen's signature to sell it? If I have to split the profit from the sale with her, that's okay. Just get rid of it.

I see the walls, like they're coming closer, not wanting me to escape. I can see my father looking at me, after I said I wanted to go to college; he said, "Bobby, don't be a dreamer. You'll never get anywhere. Best to stay here with me and your mother. Remember, we know what's best for you."

There sits Mom, on the old rocking chair my grandmother sat on; it was my senior year in high school, and I talked about which college to go to. She just went "ho-ho-ho-ho," a fake mocking laugh.

"Ma," I pleaded, "I want to go to college!"

She kept going with the "ho-ho-ho-ho!"

We stayed in the house all night, and I wished I could be out into the world, or at least the nearby borough, just to be out; "We don't need anything" was Dad's line.

There, on the living room table, lays the bible I got from my Sunday School class: red pebbled cover, my name imprinted on the cover. It's not my book anymore. I don't believe a word of it. When I said I can't understand any of it, and she yelled, "Do you want to go to Hell? Do you want to be a bad boy? You ARE a bad boy, not believing the Bible!" Neither of my parents went to church; and if they caught me reading any book besides the so-called "Holy" Bible, they'd look at me-just look at me.

One month after I graduated, I walked out. I called my buddy Marcus, stuffed my belongings in two big green trash bags, and he picked me up and we started off to his house so I can crash, for that moment. "You'll be back!" Dad kept shouting, "Remember, you're a nobody! Don't you forget it!"

My cell is buzzing; Walt Jensen is calling. "Hey, Bob, I got news for you."

"Yeah, what is it?"

"We can't find your sister anywhere. we checked all the addresses we have on her, she doesn't live in any of them anymore."

"And that means," I wondered out loud.

"It means we start the process of putting the house on the market," Walt says, "we can have the court set aside your sister's share in an escrow account, and you'll get your share up front. If after a year we don't hear from your sister, the whole estate is yours. How's that?"

I run outside holding the cell, smiling my face off. "Great!" I announce. "How soon can we start?"

"A hearing is scheduled for Monday," Walt added, "can you make it then?"

"Sure, text me the details as we get closer." I say.

"Okay, see you then." We hang up.

I stand on the front lawn, laughing, feeling lighter than I've ever felt before. It was better than a bowel movement.

I scan the houses in my old neighborhood in my old rural township. Every day, every week, every year, the same thing for me: School, house Sunday school, that was my entire life. My life starts NOW.