For Always

“Mercury, Venus, Earth.”

I closed my eyes, trying to control my breathing as the car came to a stop. How much more of this can I take? I wiped my cheek. The afternoon sun streamed through the windshield, the glare casting my vision into sepia relief. Looking out of the window, the fields of coppery flowers seemed to roll like high tide, blurred by bitter tears.

“Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,” I stomped on the brakes, slowing the car to a crawl. I took a breath.

“Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.” My hands, no longer trembling, loosened their grip on the wheel. It wasn’t until this moment that I noticed where this particular afternoon drive had taken me. Several unremarkable roads one after the other led me to a strangely familiar intersection. The traffic light swayed in the wind, its yellow light blinking in warning. Cornstalks bent in the breeze, beckoning me to continue down the road. Not seeing much of an alternative, I obliged them, driving onward.

I’ve been here before, I know it, but when? Grassy hills bordering the roads gave way to unturned dirt. Telephone wires loping above the road abruptly cut off, leaving loose cables to linger against wooden poles. How long have I been driving? I felt overcome by a sinking feeling, as if I were strapped in at the top of a roller coaster; suspended, before hurtling towards the ground. Without knowing quite why, I took a wide right turn into a nondescript neighborhood development, careening into the col de sac.

The sight that greeted my eyes confounded logic. I had to be over 1,000 miles from New Jersey. I stopped the car, staring, utterly bewildered. How could it be? How could I be...home?

I put my forehead on the steering wheel, closing my eyes. I know this isn’t my house. My home in Central Jersey, a paragon of suburban paradise, is fully built. This imposter was missing its garage. As I looked closer, I noticed there wasn’t even a mailbox.

Thoroughly baffled, I opened the car door, stepping out onto the asphalt. The front lawn, mostly dirt, was barely tinted with a hint of new grass. Yet, I could so clearly imagine it bursting with flowers. My father always took such care to tend to them himself. I crossed the porch, placing my hand on the door handle. Locked.

“Of course. Why would it be open?” I took a step back. Perhaps a sense of morbid curiosity drove me then to open my bag and pull out my key ring.

“There’s no way. This is stupid,” I told myself, finding the old bright pink house key I was given at nine years old. The gems that had once adorned it had long since fallen out, leaving tiny cavities scattered across the metal. Numbly, I slid the key into the latch and watched in utter disbelief as the door unlocked.

Reason has abandoned me.

In a daze, I walked inside. Hearing my father’s voice chastising me (“No shoes on my nice white carpets!”), I kicked off my boots to walk up the stairs. I let my fingers trail on the banister as I went, feeling as though maybe I had fallen into a vivid hallucination. The onset of a waking nightmare. Whatever explanation I tried to find, I knew in my bones, that somehow this was my home. This is my home.

I turned the corner to my bedroom, walking in gently. My hand found the light switch and I flicked it on. I looked incredulously at the light switch cover, which was the only piece of decoration in the room. Hand-painted bright pink, with curly green vines dancing on the edges, it read: “Goodnight Princess Irene” along the festive border. I ran a finger over its beveled edges, feeling altogether certain that I was losing my mind. I hadn’t seen this cover since I was eleven years old. I closed my eyes.

“Mercury, Venus, Earth,” I whispered, trying to slow my breathing. I could hear my mom’s jovial tone in my mind.

“Say it with me now, Ree-ree. Mars. Jupiter. Saturn. What’s next?”

“Uranus.”

“Very good! Okay they’re up. Two more!”

“Neptune and Plu-to!”

“Excellent! Okay, you get to put up the last star.” I smiled, imagining how she picked me up to place the last glow-in-the-dark star sticker on the bedroom wall.

“Now at night, it won’t be so dark, baby, ‘cus you’ll have the whole world with you. For always.”

Looking up, I could see in the dim light, the faintest outline of a small star on one of the walls. I peeled it from the wall, watching the rubbery plastic leave a dust outline in its wake. If I had been any less bewildered, I might have burst into tears. I missed this place like hell.

I’m not sure how long I wandered around that empty house, haunting the hazy world my memories built. I laughed with my mother. I danced with my father. I cried as my parents grew older and further apart, the chasm between them so cluttered it hardly left room for words. But people learn to build bridges. And at some point, all those years ago, we all walked across one and left. The real question is, what exactly was it that we were leaving behind?

Sunset hues cast the hallways in a peachy glow, and I found myself walking towards the door. As I turned the handle, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to lock eyes with a familiar face - my own. Stunned, I dimly felt the star slip from my fingers, dropping against the carpet.

If you could talk to your preteen self, what would you say? Offer a hug? Run away? Call your therapist to order a refill? Tell the kid that braces and bangs will be a tough combo, but once you start tweezing those eyebrows, things will get better? Before I could react, she handed me a slip of paper.

“I have a feeling this is something you need to hear,” she said. My mouth suddenly dry, I unfolded it and began to read.

Hiya,

1. Don’t be scared. 2. I can’t believe I get to be you someday! I think you’re doing really cool stuff. A writer and artist like Grandmarene. Just like we always wanted! But listen- you can’t keep letting me slip away. When things get hard, it’s easy to forget what it was like to be me. To laugh freely like me. To dream like me. To feel, like me.

I know you’re hurting and this year sucks major butt. I think everything’s gonna be okay, though. I believe in you, because I believe in me. I believe in us! And I’m not the only one.

For Always, Irene (Age: 11)

I looked up from the piece of paper to find myself standing in the center of a field. What had been hardwood flooring was now tender grass between my toes. Sloping country land stretched on for as far as the eye could see. Sighing, I lifted my feet from the dirt, retrieved my shoes, and walked to the car. Left behind in the crater of my muddy footsteps, a single yellow star laid pressed in the muck. Softly, amongst the marigolds, it began to glow. Faint against the plum sunset, their petals a constellation of the youthful wishes, hopes, and fears of bygone years.

Humans love the idea of home. Love it to the point of fighting, hard, for it. To the point, in some cases of delusion. We crave a place to which we belong so much so that we build it ourselves, leaving all our love, flaws, and fears to haunt its walls. For the record, it’s people that give a place its heart. Long after we’re gone, that heart lives on, and for the sake of love, it will never be contained by locked doors or concrete walls. We carry that heart with us, wherever we go, for always.