Page 5 of Remain
Aunt Carol offered to pick me up, like she always does, but she knows better than to push. She understands the space I need, the time it takes me to shift gears. To acclimate. Or distract myself. Or, if we’re being honest, dissociate just a little before reentering my own life.
Probably all three.
I could turn around right now. I could hop back on a plane and slip right back into clean sheets, into familiar-enough arms and a life that doesn’t ask absolutely nothing of me beyond remembering where I put my keys before I leave my apartment.
I don’t. I stay.
The highway out of the city is loud and impatient, traffic surging forward like it has somewhere important to be. Gradually, the buildings thin. The exits stretch farther apart. Cell service flickers, then steadies again, weaker now. By the time I turn onto the two-lane road that leads toward Pineview, the world has gone quiet in a way that feels intentional.
The drive into town is a study in recognition.
The same hardware store with the crooked sign leaningleft no matter how many times it’s fixed. The diner with the green awning that’s never quite the same shade twice. The long stretch of road where I learned how to drive, crying so hard in frustration that I had to pull over while my mother rubbed slow circles into my back and promised me it would pass.
Everything passes, she’d say.
She didn’t say everything leaves.
Everything looks smaller, or maybe I’ve just grown around it.
Christmas lights outline storefronts like they’ve been traced by memory itself. A banner stretches across Main Street —WELCOME HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS— the letters cheerful and unapologetic.
I should really take a picture of this for Lena later. It’s small town content gold. That thought offers me reprieve from the weight of it all until I turn onto my mother’s street and see it immediately.
The sign.
SOLD.
White post. Red lettering. Crooked from the wind.
My chest tightens so fast it almost feels physical, like something has wrapped around my heart and pulled. This house, the place where scraped knees were kissed better, where birthdays were measured on doorframes, where Christmas mornings were loud and chaotic and alive, already belongs to someone else.
I park anyway.
I sit there for more than a few breaths, listening to the engine ticking softly as it cools. The porch light glows warm against the early dusk, illuminating the familiar steps, the railing she always meant to repaint, the loose board that used to squeak no matter how careful you were.
For one terrible second, I expect the door to open.
It doesn’t. Not anymore.
Inside, the house smells the same with hints of lemon polish and cedar, with my mother’s floral perfume clinging stubbornly to the walls.
But it looks different.
Boxes are stacked neatly along the walls, labeled in Aunt Carol’s careful handwriting.Kitchen. Linens. Donate. Storage.Furniture has been shifted, rugs rolled, shelves half-empty like teeth missing from a smile. The house feels paused mid-sentence.
My coat stays on. My suitcase stays in the car. I’m not staying here while I’m back. I’m just tying loose and painful ends.
The living room couch is wrapped in plastic now, the indentation where my mother always sat still faintly visible beneath it. The lamp still leans slightly left, but there’s tape securing the cord. The dent in the wall from the night I slammed a door too hard at sixteen is still there, but now there’s a sticky note beside it, a reminder for the new owners to patch it up and make it theirs. Only theirs.
The hallway creaks under my feet, each step announcing me like the house is reminding me I belong here whether I want to or not.
My childhood bedroom door is closed, and I leave it that way. I don’t open it. The thought alone is more than I can carry right now.
In the dining room, a smaller pile of boxes sits off to the side. They aren’t labeled or sealed, just set apart and waiting, unmistakably meant for me. Photo albums. A stack of notebooks. A shoebox with its lid half off.
These are the things Aunt Carol didn’t touch because she knew better. The things she left deliberately, like a questiononly I’m allowed to answer, like memories I’m not yet ready to face but know I will have to, eventually.
The kitchen is where I finally stop. The heart of the home and especially this one. The table still bears the faint scratch from where I tried to carve a heart into it with a butter knife, much to my parents’ dismay. The fridge hums softly, nearly empty, save for a single magnet she never took down —Believe— chipped at the corners and stubborn as ever.