They had always told me the house was haunted. Not a usual haunting of a malicious ghost or a destructive demon, but of a presence. A force that gripped us all. An encroaching feeling of heavy fog that clouded our vision on a daily basis. I never saw any sign of a haunting, but throughout my childhood I could feel it. That something was wrong. Like reading the body language of someone who despises your presence without ever saying so. Except the person who despised me was my home.
I dreaded returning to this place, but cataloguing the various trinkets my family collected over the years was necessary for the estate. Books, jewelry, silverware, furniture: all things my parents put so much importance on that are now just things. Things that had value at one point, things that had stories connected to them, things I could see in our home videos when the memories have long passed, but now simply things. Things that must catalogue their passing. And as I returned, so too did it. The haunting. The dread. The memories of the youth spent in a constant state of tension. The house that hated us. For some reason my parents held on to it for as long as they could, but the “accidental” gas leak finally ended the incessant tales they shared about this place. The gloom was heavier than usual, but I had a job to do. One item after another. One floor after another. One room after another. More and more and more and more things that piled up. What was this all for? What purpose does all of it even give now? Most of this stuff I can’t even remember us having. Most of these rooms are foreign to me. One door leading into another expanding the house beyond what the walls should allow. My memory shouldn’t be failing me this young. But on I write. On I document. On deeper into the haunting of lives that once were.
The lawyers handling the property needed this catalogue more than anything. Liability and wealth accumulation of some sort yadda yadda yadda, here my family is just another statistic. But these halls are never ending. What does and doesn’t have value? This stick of furniture? This square of wallpaper? This loose puzzle piece? Each inch of floss? My writing never ends. But it must at some point. It all has to end at some point. There has to be more to what they’ve gathered, to what they left behind, than just my notes on paper. And do these notes now become part of them since they are now containing the record of who they used to be? I write the notes again, copying every piece down once more, the house expanding forever, the list of items expanding forever, the haunting expanding forever. This. Grasp. On. Me. Will. Not. End.
But then, I feel her in my stomach. One soft kick. One gentle reminder that there is more to this story than the ever-expanding halls of things. That this isn’t simply the end. Finally, appreciation. That one day, this list will be complete and a new one will begin. I hug her gently as the fog finally lifts from this haunted house.
And suddenly I’m reminded that soon, she will feel the same haunting in our home.