After the Storm by H. Pearce

Author:H. Pearce
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: H. Pearce
Published: 2023-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

I hadn’t been back to my childhood home since my mother died, but that night I packed my things and made the three-hour journey there in the dead of night. Seated on the top of a hill, it looked down on a narrow cliff-faced bay. When my mother died, I scattered her ashes into the wind there, watching as the fine dust drifted into nothing in the turbulent sea. While it had several paddocks, the fences were in ruin. We never had any animals, anyway. My mother was severely allergic to most animals. Instead, she had the most glorious garden, which some people from the nearest village would make the fifteen minute drive just to see in the spring. When she died, Ed and I had considered moving here, but it was too far for both of us work-wise, and I could never bring myself to sell it.

When I pulled into the driveway, I saw the weeds had become so thick that the path to the door was no longer visible. The gate, rusted and worn, was fastened shut, but lopsided on its hinge.

“Wait here, Pip.” She perked her head up to see where we were. I made my way around the back, lifting a lone ceramic pot by the back door to expose a single rusty key. My lungs filled with a decade’s worth of dust when I opened the back door. For reasons I never understood, even though I had not visited for close to a decade, I had continued to pay for the electricity to be connected to the house. There was no rhyme or reason, but part of me wondered if deep down my soul knew that one day, I would find myself back here.

Flicking the switch, the silence of the house was broken as it slowly stirred from its hibernation; from the low hum of the old refrigerator to the swish of an old ceiling fan that hadn’t been switched off. I made my way down the hallway, instinctively finding the light switch, before illuminating the room with a soft light. Despite being shut up for a decade, remarkably the house looked no different from the day I left it, minus its thick coating of dust and mildew sporadically littering the wallpaper. I removed the covers from the furniture before I fetched Pip from the car. From there, we sat snuggled on the couch together, my thoughts drifting to Matthew.

He didn’t know where this house was; though, I had mentioned in passing that it existed. I didn’t know whether he had been over to my house to apologise, but I knew he would be worried. He had called over a dozen times and sent several text messages. I sighed, reaching for my phone to let him know I was fine. He didn’t need the details of my whereabouts, but it would have been hurtful not to let him know I was safe, given he already questioned my mental health.

“Why do I do this, Pip?” I gazed at her.

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