Page 177 of Hurt

Kurt withdrew his hand and mounted the rotted steps. The wood creaked under his feet as he slowly walked along the porch. He didn’t say a word, but as he walked around the home Grant saw his eyes dart around—like he was seeing something Grant couldn’t. The ghosts of his memories danced in his mind, specters from the past that reflected in his dark eyes.

With a shove he got the outer door open. It wobbled on a single hinge, dropping to the floor after a valiant effort to stay upright. Kurt stepped into the dark interior and let his eyes adjust.

The furniture had been sold off when the bank foreclosed. Nothing remained in the house except dust. There were discolored patches in the walls where painting and pictures had hung before. Grant followed Kurt through the open rooms, watching the man’s back as he took in the skeleton of his former home. Hand stuffed in his pockets. Kurt dragged his boots along the floor with a wry smile. Like he was laughing at some kind of private joke.

He tentatively ascended a wide staircase. Grant watched with interest as he zigzagged up the stairs, neatly avoiding the stairs that creaked with his weight. It brought a smile to Grant’s lips as he thought of teenage Kurt sneaking in and out of the house.

The stairs opened up to a narrow hallway. Darker and more closed in than the rest of the house. The wood paneling was peeling up off the walls and it crunched underfoot as they walked by. Kurt stopped at a small door.

It was tightly closed, and Kurt didn’t reach out to open it up. He stared at the rusted doorknob with an unreadable expression—eyebrows pinched and eyes dark. His breaths sounded too loud in the space, ghosts materializing in front of his lips in the darkened hall. White wisps that seemed to be drawn to his face.

Without saying a word, he turned and walked away. Not running. But not looking back.

They ended up outside on the boat dock. The wood was in questionable condition and one splintering crack away from sending them into the thick vegetation around the edge of the pond.

“We can sell it,” Grant offered. His throat felt stiff with disuse. It felt wrong to speak now, to shatter the silence that lingered over this place like a graveyard.

“Or burn it. Or leave it as it is. Whatever you want.”

Kurt turned to stare back at the house. It loomed large above them.

“I’m going to fix it,” Kurt declared solemnly.

As most projects do, it started out slow.

Kurt spent the first three days just wandering around the house. It was overwhelming. The memories of his time living here flooded him. It was like the years he had spent away were gone the moment he stepped across the threshold. The dam broke and he was flooded with a myriad of emotions and feelings he wasn’t ready for. Every corner held a memory.

There was the step up into the kitchen that Willow always forgot about. So many dishes shattered when she tripped up and down. Gangly body flailing as she cartwheeled through the air. Skinning knees and dropping curse words that made mother scold her.

The corner where his father kept his favorite chair—the thick ugly green one that his mother hated but his father refused to get rid of. Faded and lumpy, it was situated perfectly so the warm afternoon sunlight splashed across your legs. His father pretended to be asleep on that chair more times than he could count—eyes and ears closed to the fighting.

Then there was the makeshift stage his father built the summer he turned thirteen. Just a bunch of wood haphazardly nailed together, his father would sit back on an overturned bucket and direct his three kids. Wrists bent and fingers draped, he would drift and sway with the music. Occasionally snapping his finger at Willow when she grew bored and started adding notes, or scolding Kurt when he started slouching.

He taught Willow to swim in the lake beside the boat dock. At four years old, she didn’t know how. Kurt had rolled his eyes and refused to play with a baby who couldn’t even doggy paddle. But Willow had looked at the water with such big eyes, excited and terrified. Kurt recognized something in her. So, he took pity on her, taught her how to hold her breath and blow bubbles. Two weeks later they were inseparable, trying to out dive each other and having breath holding contests under the lily pads.

And the large kitchen with the big bay window that overlooked the lake. Hazel would open it so that the breezes could carrying the smell of her cooking throughout the house. Kurt and Willow would follow their noses from wherever they were, ending up in the kitchen with a warm belly and a gentle pat on the head. Hazel would listen to them, nodding at their foolish stories and silly gossip. That was where she taught Kurt how to properly apply eyeliner and where she cut Willow’s hair into a sharp bob when she thought it would look cool her freshman year.

Its where she told them she was getting married, and that she was pregnant. She clasped the two to her chest, even though they were already taller than her, and told them she would always love them. And that they would be the best aunt and uncle in the world. The teenagers obediently bowed their heads and accepted her praise, elbowing each other for crying and then swearing they weren’t.

The front porch was where Hazel argued with his mom. She had begged her to let Willow and Kurt come live with her. Michael had opened his home to them—they would even get their own bedrooms in the White Sand Mesa mansion. She clasped their mother’s hand and begged, sacrificed her dignity to advocate for her siblings. Their mother had scoffed. How could they become great musicians at White Sand Mesa? As if music only existed at this remote lake house.

Kurt could still remember the hope in her voice. And the sound of it being shattered.

He touched every surface, every nail and joint. They were all so broken and he didn’t know how to fix them.

On the third day, he just picked a corner.

That corner turned into a room. That room turned into a section of house. From there, repairs spread like the tide.

He made a lot of trips to the local hardware store. The old guys working there were only too happy to show him how to use certain tools, never once laughing at his inexperience. Instead, there was a shine in their eyes. An excitement to teach a skill to someone who needed it. With their help, internet searches, and the repair books that Grant kept dropping by—he was getting it.

Half the time he had to pull apart what he had just fixed. There was a mistake he missed and there was no point in doing it if he couldn’t do it right.

Grant came by a lot. At first, he steadfastly refused to let Kurt stay at the dilapidated house alone, but he insisted. Grant had put his life and his work on hold for Kurt, and this was something he wanted to do alone. His hands. His sweat.

And he needed space. Room to breathe and to figure out what he was feeling.

During the day, he kept himself busy. Using the natural light and the headlamp he bought at the dollar store to light his way. His days were filled with the sound of a drill or the ear-splitting crack of a hammer, then inevitably his curses when he missed and the hammer hit his thumb instead of the nail.